Exhibition listing

Matt Arbuckle, common fate

11 April – 17 May 2025

Two Rooms is pleased to present common fate by Matt Arbuckle.

“In his most recent body of work, Matt Arbuckle has gone beyond evoking the geological and begun employing actual marble in his work, interposing real slabs alongside painted panels echoing their clouds and veins.Having once worked as a paint finisher, using feathers and badger hair brushes to mimic those imperfections that make marble so diverse and desirable, Arbuckle could choose to continue the stone, to render the painted surface indiscernible from the patterns made as limestone metamorphosed into marble. Instead, he chooses to respond to the marble through a process not entirely dissimilar to the frottage he has employed in his works for years, although rather than rubbing over a surface to create a ghostly imprint of the thing, Arbuckle makes alongside the stone, responding to the specificity of its veins and hues…”

— excerpt from Born and Found, Lucinda Bennett, 2024

The award, now in its 39th year, seeks to highlight and celebrate excellence in contemporary art practice throughout Aotearoa.

Recent Exhibitions

26 July – 4 October 2025
25 June – 20 July 2025
13 June – 25 July 2025
3 May – 27 July 2025
8 June – 24 August 2025
14 June – 11 October 2025
18 – 28 June 2025
12 April – 26 July 2025
14 June – 11 October 2025
Saturday 21 June, 10 – 4pm Monday 23 – Tuesday 24 June, 10 – 5pm
14 June – 12 July 2025
19 June – 12 July 2025