LONG COVID: Matt Henry & Emil McAvoy
PHOTO OP. x Malcolm Smith Gallery
Uxbridge Arts and Culture, Howick, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
13 Sep – 1 Nov 2025
PHOTO OP. x Malcolm Smith Gallery presents LONG COVID, an exhibition of solo and collaborative work by Matt Henry and Emil McAvoy. LONG COVID developed out of a period of intense and sustained conversation between the artists which began during the first COVID-19 lockdown of 2020.
Focusing on their shared interest in abstraction, the exhibition features McAvoy’s recent paintings based on the visual identity of the Government’s COVID-19 response and Henry’s ongoing work with real estate signage. Both artists explore the motifs of geometric abstraction as a form of mimicry, co-opting their compositions from visual communications.
At the nexus of applied art and painting, LONG COVID examines notions of contagion between forms of art and design, mining the political and poetic potential of geometric abstraction in post-COVID Aotearoa.
PHOTO OP. CURATORIAL PLATFORM: CLICK HERE
SOFT LAUNCH: AN EXOPOETICS OF THE CROP CIRCLE PHENOMENON PHOTOBOOK: CLICK HERE
ARCHIVED PROJECTS:
Selected Exhibition Highlights
LONG COVID: Matt Henry & Emil McAvoy, PHOTO OP. x Malcolm Smith Gallery, Auckland, 2025
The Government Stroke, Northart, Auckland, 2023 [solo, mini survey]
SOFT LAUNCH: An Exopoetics of the Crop Circle Phenomenon, PHOTO OP., Auckland, 2022
The Truth is Out There, The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 2022
The National Basement, Old Government House, University of Auckland, 2020 [solo]
This is New Zealand, City Gallery Wellington, 2018
$1/Word: A Living Wage for New Zealand Art Writers, Projects Programme, Auckland Art Fair, 2018
This Might Be The Place, Ilam Gallery, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 2017
this is the cup of your heart, The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 2016
PRISMISM, Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Wellington, 2014 [solo]
Reflections on Lily Pond, Projectspace, Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, 2014 [solo]
[WEBSITE IN DEVELOPMENT – NEW & ARCHIVED PROJECTS TO BE ADDED]