rewa /

to melt, become liquid, dissolve

“Rewa’s work is an absorbing contradiction of contemporary and traditional where imperfection and light plays are celebrated.”

/  PIP GOLDSBURY - WRITER LATITUDE MAGAZINE  /

The Abditory – is home to resident artist Rewa. With a future tightly woven into the past of her forebears, Rewa is an artist with a story to tell. Heartbreakingly beautiful, the tale is one of love, betrayal, anguish and hope. Gifted the handwritten manuscripts of her great grandmother, Rewa has become the guardian of a New Zealand narrative, one she intends to share with the world through her fine art photography and story-telling finesse.

The Abditory feels like an extension of Rewa - an intriguing and curious fusion of spirited and free, grounded and traditional, enchanting and absorbing. It’s also a space where Rewa explores ambrotype and tintype photographic portraiture, a methodology that dates back to the mid-1850s and was originally used to document cadavers!

Complete with antique furniture, silver teapots of syrupy collodion and sodium thiosulphate, a replica bellows camera and even an armchair salvaged from the 1844 shipwreck of Akaroa’s Captain Bruce, Rewa offers contemporary experiential wet plate portrait photography that is destined to outlast generations.

Laughingly describing herself as a photographic alchemist, Rewa’s work is an absorbing contradiction of contemporary and traditional where imperfection and light plays are celebrated. With its long exposure, Rewa’s methodology captures a period of time that reflects on who you are, not what you are.