Melter of Limbs brings into conversation recent bodies of work by Emerita Baik and Georgie Hill. The exhibition explores curious convergences and slippages between their respective practices. Images and forms occasionally assume a symbolic dimension through archetypal and mythical references—Hills' overlaying of Eros the 'melter of limbs', as per Sappho's characterisation, with the alluring yet perilous siren figure, or Baik's exploration of Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, who wavers on the margins of two worlds.¹

Each artist skirts the peripheries of recognisable forms, testing the way systems of representation can be ruptured to articulate intangible forces and feelings. In this way, the resulting works fluctuate between visceral revelation and formal control, re-enacting the tensions between self and other, visibility and concealment. Seen together, the practices enact thresholds for the viewer to navigate, translating allegorical impulse and subjective experience into a distilled phenomenological language, one that asks how myth might persist in abstraction.

_{1. Sappho's fragment 130, as translated in: Anne Carson, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (Vintage Books, 2003), 265}

^{Emerita Baik is an artist from Aotearoa currently living in New York City, who works across sculpture, printmaking, and installation. She holds a BFA (Hons) from Massey University and an MFA from Columbia University. Recent exhibitions include Inside my necklace (Robert Heald, 2025), Spring Time is Heart-break: Contemporary Art in Aotearoa (Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 2023-24), Aotearoa Contemporary (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2024), and Folded Memory (Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, 2023). Her work is held in the collections of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Massey University Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, and Wellington City Council.}

_{Georgie Hill is a painter who lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau. She holds a BFA from the Elam School of Fine Arts and an MFA from Whitecliffe. Recent exhibitions include Sirens (Superpartner, 2024) and Venus Marina / The Roses Came Roaring (Sumer, 2023). Hill has been the recipient of several awards and residencies, including the Olivia Spencer Bower Foundation Art Award (2011), the C Art Trust Award (2019), and the Youkobo Art Space residency in Tokyo (2020). Her work is held in the collections of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, and the Chartwell Collection. Key solo exhibitions include: Feint (City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, 2013 / Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, 2014), and a solo presentation at the 2019 Beijing Contemporary Art Fair.}