The South British Insurance Company Limited Building Art Project, in association with ARTTFORM, have recently opened a new mural by Georgia Arnold.

Working across diverse media, Arnold blurs figure and field, fantasy and reality, to create a succession of ‘worlds within the world’. She reflects on the innate desire to establish a territory—a safe, delimited space that permits unbounded speculation. Arnold completed a BFA at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts in 2019.

Speaking about this new commission, Arnold outlines:

“In my work over the last couple of years I have been investigating the messy potential of autobiography and how the self contends with structures, both societal and self-imposed. When making, I enjoy the playful tension between depicting imagery and the range of expressive markmaking my materials offer. I employ surrealist techniques of automatism and mind wandering to ‘carve out’ imagery that explores memories, ambiguous figure/field relationships, networks and plant and human entanglements.

I often turn to gardening as a metaphor for my art practice and my life. I have been helping out in the garden since I was four at my Nana’s place, and ever since I feel the need to create a small veggie and flower patch wherever I am living. Recently, in my flat’s patio garden I have been enjoying making trellises. The structures are built with overlapping bamboo and repeated knots, a meditative task setting up the support for future growth.

What ever will grow borrows the lattice motif from outside the front of the South British Insurance building to map the wall. Drawing at this scale feels like swimming. The painting was built organically; combining studies of plants in my garden with a continuous line drawing where creatures emerge from the overgrowing tendrils of an imaginary plant. The use of orange allows the trellis to morph into terracotta tiles, distorting all perspective into pattern. Focusing loosely instead on the point of view of a bug and allowing for garden rhythms to play out across the curved wall.”

The artwork will be on view at the South British Insurance Company Limited Building interior lobby—Shortland Street, Tāmaki Makaurau CBD—for the next six months.