For April 2026, ZIMMERMAN is delighted to present Paradise and Earthly bodies - new oil paintings by Catherine Manchester. 

Born in Auckland, raised in Eastbourne and now living in Christchurch, Catherine has an extensive exhibition history in public and private galleries throughout New Zealand.

This month's exhibition, Paradise and Earthly bodies, is the artist's first solo exhibition in Palmerston North.

Also on display is Catherine's poignant painting Youth, which features on the front cover of her recently released semi-autobiographical novel, Sunshine Road.   

An artist's commentary for this month's exhibition, together with details of the displayed works, are under the images below.

Come take a look - gallery open hours are 11am to 3pm Thursday to Sunday (closed Good Friday and Easter Sunday) - exhibition runs until Sunday 3 May.

Artist's commentary 

"Nature is our playground, the stage where we play out the dramas of our existence, a paradise, and our earthly home.

With remarkable swiftness in the Anthropocene era we have tipped the balance of nature, and sought to control or bend it to our whims and inventions with some devastating changes to our environment.

In historical times - and even now - religion has held sway over our view of life on earth as a temporal dwelling place whilst heaven provides an eternal home.

A schism developed; that earthly existence was somehow an inferior state, an earthly body was to be rejected over a superior non earth based existence elsewhere.

In this series I would like to bring things down to earth

We belong to the earth. The same elements and chemicals present and made possible for life are the exact same elements of which our bodies consist.

My paintings in this series are entitled Earthly bodies. They are inseparable from the habitats to which they belong.

Rather than a wish to escape they belong.

If we can slow down the pace at which we live life we might better retain the beauty and the balance of nature.

Having grown up near the sea it is a subject to which I return, where I rediscover the elements of our own, my own, existence embedded in nature.

We describe water as a body, the land as body, our planet as an earthly body. 

We belong to the earth, to a paradise here where otherness isn’t needed."

Featured works: 

- Earthly bodies I (2025), oil on canvas, 300 x 450 mm

- Earthly bodies II (2026), oil on canvas, 300 x 400 mm

- Earthly bodies III (2025), oil on canvas, 250 x 350 mm

- Earthly bodies IV (2026), oil on canvas, 250 x 515 mm

- Belonging: Earth, sky & sea (2026), oil on canvas, 460 x 610 mm

- Field of figures (2025), oil on canvas, 560 x 555 mm

- Where the harbour meets the sea (2025), oil on canvas, 300 x 300 mm

- Stop (2026), oil on canvas, 310 x 310 mm

- Youth (2025), oil on canvas, 600 x 900 mm - featured on the cover of the artist's recently released novel, Sunshine Road

Brief artist bio

Born in Auckland in 1957, Catherine Manchester grew up in the coastal settlement of Eastbourne, near Wellington.

She gained a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Victoria University in 1978, and graduated from Otago Polytechnic in 1984 with a Diploma in Fine Arts (majoring in painting).

After receiving a Creative New Zealand grant in 1986, the following year Catherine was awarded the Rita Angus Residency in Wellington.

Catherine went on to be selected as a finalist in a number of New Zealand art awards, including the Adam Portraiture Award (2006), Greater Wellington Regional Arts Prize (2018 and 2021), Craigs Aspiring Art Prize (2023) and New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts Prize for Visual Art (2025).

Public galleries to have hosted solo exhibitions of the artist’s work include Forrester Gallery (Oamaru) in 1994, Aigantighe Art Gallery (Timaru) in 1998, Suter Art Gallery (Nelson) in 2012, and Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History (Masterton) in 2013.

Among the private galleries throughout New Zealand that have exhibited Catherine's work over the past 40 years are Carnegie Gallery (Dunedin) in the 1980s, Brooke Gifford (Christchurch) and Janne Land Gallery (Wellington) in the 1990s, and Ferner Gallery (Wellington and Auckland) for 10 years, including solo exhibitions at Ferner Gallery in 1998, 1999 and 2003.  

In 2016 a retrospective of Catherine's works, curated by Greg Chaston, was exhibited at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington.

Now living in Christchurch, Catherine exhibits with selected galleries throughout New Zealand.