The Raglan Arts Weekend hits town over Labour Weekend, with local creatives ready to pack a punch with art in all shapes, colours, forms and sizes.
Along with the tried and true of the Raglan art world, this year marks the inaugural emerging artists’ exhibition The Hatch at the Raglan Town Hall.
Kayla Bacon is one of the newbies proudly exhibiting her creative reimagining of your nana’s wallpaper from the 1970s.
In her third year of a contemporary art degree at Wintec, Kayla describes herself as a pattern-based artist influenced by geometric abstraction.
“I take a lot of influence from 1970s wallpaper design. Playing with colour and illusion, my work has that 3D aspect to it, they change in colour and form as you move around them. Within my practice, I create designs in Illustrator and then use a laser cutter to cut shapes into MDF. From there I spray paint the shapes and glue them together,” she says.
Her colour palette captures the essence of the 70s, and the geometric patterning and layers create a psychedelic and mesmerising effect.
And her art is far from being kitsch; the pieces are funky and vibrant, and would not look out of place in any contemporary art gallery.
From painting cat portraits and human portraits with a nod to pop art to combining digital and analogue practices to create 3D wall-hanging paintings, Kayla has come a long way in her art journey.
However, art wasn’t her first career path.
Leaving school, she heeded the advice of family members to get a job ‘that’ll earn you money’ and for the last eight years Kayla has worked as an auto electrician.
A self-confessed petrol-head, working on cars wasn’t a huge jump for this creative who still works part-time at the Top Garage.
“Dad was a hydraulic hose doctor and he got me into racing at Huntly speedway when I was a kid.”
Sick of working on cars in a male-dominated environment, Kayla decided to give her other passion a go and enrolled at Wintec in 2020.
“When lockdown happened, I thought I would like to try and pursue art instead.”
A Raglan local for four years now, Kayla was introduced to the arts weekend last year when she hit the arts trail to check out the local talent.
“I really wanted to get involved when I did the whole walk around last year. I thought it was such a cool idea. I had no idea how I was gonna go about it because I don’t have a space here in Raglan (to exhibit).”
Applying and being accepted to be part of The Hatch exhibition, Kayla now has the town hall space along with 15 other up-and-coming creatives.
“I’m looking forward to connecting with the community because I haven’t really been able to put my work and my practice out in Raglan, nobody really knows about me,” she laughs.
Not a stranger to exhibiting, with several Wintec exhibitions under her belt she says The Hatch is a nice introduction to holding an exhibition in the real world.
“It will be good to fully experience what it’s like without being under the Wintec security blanket.”
Kayla has also been lucky enough to be under the mentorship of established Raglan artist Hayley Hamilton.
And although their styles are quite different, Kayla has been inspired by Hayley’s work ethic.
“Hayley is a really good businesswoman. I knew her beforehand, so it wasn’t scary going in and being by her side. But she’s been really helpful especially with networking.”
It’s through Hayley’s network that Kayla has been invited to exhibit this summer at Artists at Work Gallery run by another couple of RAW artists Jane Galloway and Marise Rarere.
Looking to the future, Kayla is eyeing up ways she can buy a laser cutter and embark on a fulltime career in the arts.
At around $16,000, they don’t come cheap but she’s looking to her love of cars to help finance her new career.
“I think I might have to sell my car to get a laser cutter because I’m really determined to make it.”
And being a true car fanatic, the car parked up in her carport is a classic Ford Escort in mint condition.
Janine Jackson
