Sophia Smolenski: Offering It Up.
Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui, 2025 May-November 2025
Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2023.
Three years in the making, Sophia Smolenski’s installation uses the accoutrement of the mount-maker’s workshop and the furniture of exhibition display as frames for the presentation of 22 art works the artist has commissioned from a range of contemporary New Zealand makers who were invited to create items for display in response to mounts she first constructed for objects in her personal possessions
Learn more about Sophia's incredible project here
Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui, 2025 May-November 2025
Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2023.
Three years in the making, Sophia Smolenski’s installation uses the accoutrement of the mount-maker’s workshop and the furniture of exhibition display as frames for the presentation of 22 art works the artist has commissioned from a range of contemporary New Zealand makers who were invited to create items for display in response to mounts she first constructed for objects in her personal possessions
Learn more about Sophia's incredible project here
 Offering it up, install Adam Art gallery
The Terraces brooch I made for Sohipa was inspired by the concept of art for health, reflecting the connection between creativity and well-being. My mother experienced debilitating postnatal depression, and one day, her father brought her a photo of the pink and white terraces and encouraged her to paint it, which she did, and this act became a turning point in her recovery. I find this particularly intriguing because my grandfather who was a POW in WW2 returned and was retrained in the jewellery trade as a disabled serviceman. I believe that this work was a very healing profession for him. It's also fascinating to me that the pink and white terraces were renowned for their healing waters, a fact well-known in Te Ao Māori. Early European settlers often disconnected from there own traditional cultural practices of healing commodified this healing aspect, turning it into the first tourist attractions in Aotearoa (New Zealand) The images of the terraces appeared on postcards, inviting travelers from afar. Furthermore, The paua shell jewelry created by the Disabled Servicemen's League after the war marked the beginning of the souvenir trade in Aotearoa. The Terraces brooch to me acts as a fragment of a wish object — a commodified, magical healing object that travels through time .
The mount I chose was made for a carved wooden pipe elaborately decorated in silver with is own suspended chain.
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Jennifer Laracy, Terraces Brooch, Sterling silver, paua shell, paint, cast and fabricated, 2022
Mount, Sopia Smolenski Images courtesy of Sophia Smolenski 
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