Exhibition Opening - STAR SEED FARM - Rohan Wealleans

Name: Exhibition Opening - STAR SEED FARM - Rohan Wealleans
Start: 2025-02-14T17:00:00+13:00
Location: 106 Devon Street West, New Plymouth, New Zealand 4310

Schedule

Fri, 14 Feb, 2025 at 05:00 pm

UTC+13:00

Location

106 Devon Street West, New Plymouth, New Zealand 4310 | New Plymouth, TK

Rohan Wealleans invites you into a world where paint transcends its traditional role, becoming something entirely new.
Star Seed Farm marks the debut collection of the first 100 Star Seeds, each meticulously crafted from layers of acrylic paint, each bearing its own specimen number. These are not just artworks; they are artefacts of transformation, the cultivated yield of Wealleans’ dedicated practice - a practice that has evolved over 25 years into what he calls paint farming.
Obsessed with paint’s materiality, Wealleans has spent decades developing a unique visual language, one that speaks to both the physical and the metaphoric. Paint is not merely a medium; it is a living substance, an entity in flux. Everything he removes from a painting finds new life in another sculptural work - nothing is wasted, everything is repurposed. The process is slow and deliberate; each cone of paint takes five months to form, growing layer by layer, accumulating history and depth. Over time, Wealleans has amassed an extensive collection of these cones, a vast harvest waiting to be cultivated into new works.
Each Star Seed is composed of these carefully nurtured paint cones, manifesting in various sizes and colours, their round forms hinting at potential. But what will they become? What will they grow into? Their purpose remains ambiguous. Will combining a blue seed with a yellow one yield a green seed? Are these seeds ideas? Are they relics of transformation, waiting for activation?
“I’ve always been fascinated by how franchises like Pokémon and Masters of the Universe create expansive worlds where everything is interconnected and open to reinvention. The idea of cross-collaboration - like Whittaker’s chocolate teaming up with Jelly Tip ice creams - has always inspired me. A major influence was the film Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which blew my mind to think of clown-themed aliens.
In a similar way, Star Seed Farm is about a system of transformation and possibility. Each Star Seed is part of a science-based collection, open to mixing, categorisation, and reinterpretation - much like Pokémon evolutions, Pandora bracelets, or interior design combinations. They exist in a space of potential, waiting for meaning to be assigned. The painting Harvest, from a series that follows the same idea, where the central image can be mixed and matched, creating endless variations.”
Like the worlds of Pokémon or Masters of the Universe, Star Seed Farm is open-ended - its meaning shaped by those who engage with it. Wealleans does not prescribe a final purpose for the Star Seeds. Instead, he invites you, the viewer, to decide. If a seed speaks to you, its purpose is yours to define. In this way, Star Seed Farm is not just an exhibition - it is an invitation to wonder, to question, and ultimately, to cultivate your own interpretations.