Artmosphere Gallery
After finishing his 3 year apprenticeship as a photographer in 1973 Helmut began working as a fashion and advertising photographer. In 1979 Helmut gained his Masters of Fine Arts in Photography and began work as a tutor in the Photo Department of a vocational training school in his native Germany where he worked for 30 years. The main part of Helmuts private photography work has always been black and white photography and he often uses special black and white infrared materials in his photography which can convey a landscapes strong sense of drama like no other. For three decades Helmut has worked with his 6x17cm Technorama cameras and has taken landscape photographs worldwide. Helmut still works on his own film, developing his own negatives and silver gelatine prints. He publishes many books and calendars and is held in private collections worldwide. In 2012 Helmut Hirler along with his partner Sally Maguire established Artmosphere gallery as we know it today in Waipawa, Central Hawke’s Bay, after moving to new pastures in Masterton in late 2021 Helmut will soon be opening a new smaller gallery, Papermoon Gallery which will feature the works of Gary Waldrom, Sally Maguire and Himself.
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Helmut HirlerSally’s passion for painting comes from capturing the intense beauty of life itself, from the tiny moss that grows on our fence posts to the glorious sky of our lands. Sally paints emotion through her oils. In 2012 Sally Maguire and Helmut Hirler relocated a homestead and moved their gallery Artmosphere to its current location Waipawa, Central Hawke’s Bay. After 12 years running a gallery with more than 100 artists Sally and Helmut decided to sell and move to new pastures in Masterton where they are now surrounded by native bush. Here they are creating a new gallery called Papermoon gallery for a quieter lifestyle it will feature only 3 artists, Sally Maguire, Helmut Hirler and Gary Waldrom.
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Sally MaguireGary Waldrom was born 1953 in Waipawa Hawke’s Bay. He has had no formal art training, which has assisted the development of his unique style. He has been a finalist in various significant art competitions since the 1970’s, including the Bensen & Hedges Art Award in 1978, and has received numerous awards, including the Eastern & Central Trust Bank Art prize in 1981 and the Montana Lindauer Art Merit Award in 1986. He has had frequent regular solo exhibitions throughout the country, and also featured in a Television documentary and radio shows. One of the strengths of Waldrom’s paintings is the unanswerable questions they pose: about who these characters are, about how much of what is painted comes from the artist’s experience/life - this leads to an assumption that there is some quiet personal agenda, or secret narrative. But it is the very open applications of the themes, and the unique and quirky visual appeal of Waldrom’s work that keeps one fascinated Waldrom’s figures are smiling (or at least smirking). They seem to know something that we don’t, as they look boldly out of the painting with direct and unflinching (maybe slightly teasing) stare. And they block the view of a background that seems to increasingly provide a wide-open space that contrasts dramatically with the detail of the figures, and enhances the sense of their oddness and mysterious isolation.
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Gary Waldrom