PAULNACHE brushes aside all the rules and formalities that come with being a dealer gallery in Aotearoa New Zealand. Operating since 2009 the Gallery has set its own course and proposed a new model for the dealer gallery, blurring the lines between public and private gallery, between dealer and curator, house style and punk attitude. It offers less a consumable list or stable of artists than a family or community of artist /collaborators who come together and work with Nache to each extend their own practice, but also contribute to the greater whole which is the unrelenting forward momentum of this Gallery. 

Refusing to join the crowd and rejecting the received wisdom that says galleries belong in the big cities, PAULNACHE operates out of the coastal town of Gisborne, on the East Coast of Aotearoa’s North Island. Gisborne provides PAULNACHE with more than just its physical base – a gallery in a refurbished building on the city’s main street. At a time when many galleries claim noncommittally to ‘be based’ in a particular location, PAULNACHE draws its energies and ambitions from this city, and offers much in return. Committed to the local as well as the national, PAULNACHE has built a passionate community for contemporary art in Gisborne, and beyond.

PAULNACHE may be rooted in Gisborne, but reaches much further. Regularly launching out from its physical base, the Gallery is renown for its innovative and often subversive presence at art fairs and other events. It holds and supports exhibitions of its artists in other cities and countries, and has a production and publishing wing which ensures that new thinking and writing on and around its artists is always present.

The Directors bio

PAULNACHE was launched on the 1st of January 2009. Nache, who has a Bachelor of Design Degree from Wellington’s Massey University, co-opened The Pencil Gallery in Gisborne in 2004, and initially specialised in representing contemporary Maori art, and artists with a drawing background who had personal connections to the Gisborne region.

The rebranding as PAULNACHE, and the renovation of the exhibition space, marked a major new phase in Nache’s ambitions for himself and his artists. The gallery currently operates an exhibition space in Gisborne, New Zealand, as well as presenting the work of its artists through exhibitions in private and public galleries, publications, and annual participation at art fairs.

Working on a network model, drawing on connections to identify opportunities and make things happen quickly, the PAULNACHE Gallery has established a reputation for dynamic and creative solutions in the presentation of its stable of artists, many of whom have substantial practices that are not recognised by the dominant narratives of art history.

PAULNACHE sees itself as a gallery in the provinces, rather than a provincial gallery, representing its family of artists to national and increasingly international audiences. At the heart of the Gallery is the desire to teach people to have an emotional connection with art, and to foster the sense of value that art has in terms of society, community, culture and life.

“I wake before you, I eat before you, I dream before you. The first city to see the sun in the world, I live in the land of light; so I come from the future”

– Interview with Paul Nache, exploring how New Zealand’s edges can also be our arts centres, written by Mark Amery

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