Ruby Joy Eade
Resumes Friday 10 September
Exhibition dates: 31 July - 1 October
Barbara linen, cotton, vintage textiles, 2020.
My great-grandmother kept her wedding veil in a preserving jar on the mantelpiece. I've never seen it (or met her) but my grandma told me about it last year and it hasn’t left my mind.
In a gentle reminder artist Ruby Joy Eade considers the textile ephemera of her own life, the generations that came before her, and those yet to come. A worn out doll's blanket is reimagined large enough for two, garments worn by generations are fragmented across the pixelated surface of a quilt, a network of stitches melts scraps of fabric together into a soft painting. In honouring, archiving and collaborating with these materials Eade converses with their histories, known and unknown.
Textiles in all their forms - clothing, tea-towels, bedding, bags and upholstery quietly shroud our interactions with the world around us. Whether it be a favourite pair of pants, a gauzy tulle memory or a silky scarf snapped up at an op shop, textiles connect with us in a way that is intimate and tactile. Quilts formed from constellations of these fabrics are record keepers, preserving memories and culture. They are artworks that exist mostly in our homes: made to live with, to sleep with, to spill things on, to smell and to touch.
Ruby Joy Eade is an artist and maker based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She works in a range of mediums including print, installation, ceramics and quilts. Her recent work explores the relationship between text and textile, fine art and domestic objects, and the complexities of interpersonal relationships.
other exhibitions
Daniel Beban and Tim Barlow's immersive, interactive sound installation fills the environment of Toi Pōneke gallery for the final exhibition at the Able-Smith Street space.
Toi Pōneke is excited to present Koru meets Tartan by Toi Pōneke Art Centre’s 2024 Visual Arts Residency recipient Mitchell Manual, opening on Saturday 21st March 2026.
Exploring the potential of woven structures through textile making, the exhibition by Angela Kilford and Lisa Munnelly titled Under, Over and Across creates a dialogue between painting, raranga and hand-woven works.
voices notations distortion is the debut solo show by artist and musician Gemma Thompson at Toi Pōneke Gallery 17 Jan - 6 Feb 2026. Inspired by Pauline Oliveros' Sonic Meditations, the exhibition explores her soundwalking practice through graphic scores, realised as drawings, paintings, prints, and sonic compositions. Each mark resonates with its own energy – echoing, layering, and unfolding across the surface.
In Each Other’s Pockets opens Friday 24 October 2025 at Toi Pōneke Gallery, Te Aro, Wellington.
Through her playful installation, contemporary jeweller Louise Hill interrogates the politics of pockets; the private spaces that shape how we move through the world, investigating what it means for some to be equipped with the tools they need, while others are not.
20 years at Abel Smith looks back on the tapestry of Toi Pōneke at Abel Smith Street and invites artists, friends, family and guest on a small stroll down memory lane in hopes to build an even stronger step forward into the future. Opens Friday 5:30 24 Oct and is on in the back gallery until Friday 21 Nov 2025.
He Whare Mahana - a warm house, a full house, a cosy kainga to nurture your dreams and the infi nite queer possibilities. Tātou āhuru mōwai, nau mai, haere mai.
Artists Katy Cottrell and Rick Allender explore the connection between land and sea through intricate works crafted from natural wood veneers.
What is the connection between sugar, colonisation, global trade and climate change?
Azucar/Sugar is an explorative gallery experience that uses sugar sculptures, videos and digital art to trace how European and US conquest terraformed the environment from a living entity that encompassed the living spirits of the land, water, plants, animals and humans into an inert repository of resources to be harvested and harnessed for profit. Azucar/Sugar is the latest installation from With Lime, the long-standing collaboration between William Franco and Miki Seifert.
Sonic artist Kieran Monaghan presents GUEST, an interdisciplinary exhibition of sound, image and organic matter, which offers up a sonic practice for the Anthropocene. This body of work explores a practice that places the ‘human’ not at the centre, but as an ongoing active collaborator. Working as a member of the non-human/tech/human trio, vegetable.machine.animal, Monaghan makes space where the voice of the ‘Other’ is amplified and essential to the voice of the ‘Whole’.
This May, Toi Pōneke Gallery presents a compelling mother-son exhibition that reclaims vision and voice through the powerful mediums of painting and photography. Featuring the evocative work of Ashraf Pirnia and Pedram Pirnia, this showcase dives into deep introspection and feminist resistance, amplifying silenced voices and uncovering layers of identity, truth, and transformation.
see other past exhibitions in the gallery archive
- Posted in exhibition
- Tagged 2021, textiles, quilts, sewing