Strong Voices

Say goodbye to Sandz Gallery and say hello to the Hamilton Grey Street Studio/Gallery, the new showcase for artists with intellectual disabilities.

The home of champions Sandz Gallery and Studio has shifted house after more than 20 years and reinvented itself closer to the crowds in Hamilton East.

In February the Hamilton IDEA Services art base moved from its home in Kent Street, Frankton, to Grey Street in Hamilton East, to a smaller but much more visible space for its talented artists.

Support worker Maree Glass has run the gallery for the past 11 years and says the number of artists using the space has dropped from about 40 to 45 in its heyday to about 18 now, post-COVID. Eleven of the artists using the space are supported by IDEA Services, three live at home and others are supported by other providers.

Maree says the new space might be a lot smaller but suits present needs. “It’s really small and we have only two big art tables and a lot of our storage has gone.” But, she says, it’s a great space in a good location and they were lucky to find it.

“It’s just lovely. Every day people come in and ask what we are all about. People ask to volunteer,” she says.

“Sandz was in an industrial area in the back of Frankton and there was no foot traffic and mirror glass at the front, so no one could see in. I started the ball rolling because I felt we were in the wrong place. Most of the sales that we got were from a few loyal supporters.”

Maree says the artists love their new studio and at least six works will be entered into the 2024 IHC Art Awards. The new Grey Street Studio/Gallery will be making its mark too and entering the new award category for art studios.

In the 20 years since the IHC Art Awards started, in 2004, Hamilton artists working from Sandz have won prizes most years, including the top prizes to Paul Sedgwick in 2007 and Cherie Mellsopp in 2009.

The roll call of champions also includes Kenny Edge, Ruby Davey, Hone Paekau, Paul Griffith, Dianne Cadman, Peter Smith, Deshan Walallavita and Emma White winning either second or third prizes.

Sandz was set up in the early 2000s on the site of an old, sheltered workshop to support artists with intellectual disabilities to develop their art practice, to exhibit and become self-sufficient artists. Artist Lauren Lysaght, who advised IHC on setting up the Art Awards, had visited Sandz and was moved by the raw creativity she saw there – art that had not been “sanitised and refined and gentrified”. Lauren was one of the first judges of the Awards.

Former IHC President Donald Thompson, in his introduction to the book IHC Art Awards 2004–2014, credited the artists working in Sandz and other IHC art studios with the idea of launching the competition. “In the early 2000s IHC/IDEA Services art studios, like Sandz Gallery and Studio in Hamilton, Petone Arthouse and Alpha Gallery in Wellington, were changing the way they worked with people who wanted to develop their art practice. Encouraged by tutors who believed the sky was the limit, the artists took up the challenge. Their achievements inspired IHC to launch a competition in 2004 to inspire others.”

Above: Grey Street artists are (from left) Emma White, Deshan Walallavita, Sharon Gleeson and Mai-chi Tran at the bench.