Visions of Zealandia 2: the big idea

a photo-artistic exhibition by Judi Lapsley Miller

About the exhibition

Following on from her wildly successful 2017 exhibition at ZEALANDIA, Judi's latest exhibition tells us new stories about ZEALANDIA's birds, with images exploring their intelligence and curiosity, their history and beauty, and what the future might hold for them.  "Visions of Zealandia 2: the big idea" celebrates each bird as an individual, unique soul with a story to tell in a series of painterly portraits. Of special note is "Imagine" - a commissioned work by Jim and Eve Lynch, founders and visionaries of the ZEALANDIA project, created especially for Jim's upcoming book on the history and impact of ZEALANDIA. 

For many years now, Judi has advocated for birds through writing and photography, as well as field work. Her step into wildlife advocacy through creative interpretation was a natural progression. Freed from the constraints of pure nature photography, Judi exposes her interpretation of the inner world of others – their thoughts and feelings, their hopes and desires – in a form tangible to the human viewer that she hopes engenders empathy with other living creatures. Caring and understanding at an emotional level can translate into action that will ensure these precious species survive.

What is fine-art photo artistry? 

For photo-artists, the photograph is just the first step in the creative process. One digital photo-artistic image can consist of hundreds of layers of photographs, graphics, scanned ephemera and textures, lighting and colour adjustments, and digital brushstrokes all blended and masked together to form an image that is more painting than photograph. The image may then be Giclée printed onto archival fine-art canvas or paper or other substrates.

Artworks available

Each framed limited-edition artwork in the exhibition is available for sale. All are professionally framed and use UltraVue anti-reflective glass for a fully immersive experience. Archival unframed limited-edition prints will be available in three sizes at the ZEALANDIA shop or can be ordered via Judi's online store. Also available will be constantly updated TinyArt pieces - miniature framed archival artworks created from the quality waste-stream of Judi's printing process and framer Chris Helliwell's framing business. 

For all the pictures in this exhibition, 10% of the artist's proceeds goes back to conservation in addition to the gallery commission (which also directly goes to support ZEALANDIA's conservation work), thus both the artist and the art collector are participating in wildlife conservation. 

About the artist

Judi is a local Wellington artist and photographer and is a long-term ZEALANDIA volunteer, with a special interest in the kākā breeding program and in helping tell ZEALANDIA's stories to the wider world.