Stella Corkery (born 1960) is a New Zealand visual artist and drummer, born in Tuatapere, New Zealand. Corkery's work is experimental and reflective, often commenting on contemporary ideas. She currently lives and works in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

, New Zealand.

Education

Corkery attended the

Elam School of Fine Art The Elam School of Fine Arts, founded by John Edward Elam, is part of the University of Auckland Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries at the University of Auckland. Students study degrees in fine a ...

(

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn ...

) where she received a BFA (Hons) First Class Honors in 2012 and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in 2013.

Visual art

Corkery's paintings use traditional processes, such as oils, although she doesn't restrict herself to a particular style. Her visual works include ''Smoke and Butterfly'' (2015) and ''Gas Light'' (2015). In 2013 Corkery was selected to be part of the exhibition ''Freedom Farmers: New Zealand Artists Growing Ideas'' at the

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand and frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions. Set be ...

. This exhibition showcased twenty New Zealand contemporary artists from various media, reflecting on concept such as utopia, sustainability, and artistic freedom. Corkery's recent exhibitions in New Zealand include: ''Necessary Distraction: a painting show (''

, 2015, with Saskia Leek, Julian Hooper, Nicola Farquhar, Kirstin Carlin, and James Cousins); ''Porous Moonlight'' (Papakura Art Gallery, 2013); and ''Episodic Nomadic'' (Gloria Knight, Auckland, 2013). She has held several exhibitions at the Michael Lett gallery including: ''Theme for a Science Fiction Vampire'' (2017), ''Sparks'' (2015), ''Kicking Against The Pricks'' (2014), and a joint show with Jim Allen & Dan Arps (2016). Corkery has also exhibited outside New Zealand including ''Caravan'' (2014) at the Station Gallery in Melbourne, Australia, ''Patches'' (2017) and ''Keep Smiling the Boss Loves Idiots'' (2016), at Poppy's in New York, USA.

Music

Corkery is a self-taught drummer and has been involved in the

underground music Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, mainstream popular music culture. Underground music is intimately tied to popular music culture as a whole, so there are important tensions within underground ...

scene since the late 1980s. She has been part of

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference aris ...

and

lo-fi Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The ...

bands including Angelhead, Queen Meanie Puss, and White Saucer. Her first band, The Pleats, was formed in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

around 1980 with Rachel Shearer (Lovely Midget, which Corkery was also a member of) and Debbie Hinden (Indigo Underworld).

Labels

In the early 1990s she started the Pink Air and Girl Alliance record labels with her partner Alan Holt. Both labels were created to support musicians in Auckland, with The Pink Air label focusing experimental and psychedelic music and Girl Alliance part of the

riot grrrl Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. Riot grrrl is a sub ...

movement.

Education

Visual art

Music

Labels

Discography

References

Further reading