Grace Aotearoa is a Tāmaki-based gallery, which specialises in the representation of early career artists within Aotearoa. Directed by Emil Scheffmann, the gallery has recently relocated from its former Pitt Street home into Symond Street’s historic Rationalist House. A building rich with history, Rationalist House has been owned by the New Zealand Association of Rationalists & Humanists since 1960 – having been home to the Association’s library, an infamous jazz club, the Society for Closer Relations with the USSR, and, for many years, the Socialist Party. As a gallery with a reputation for championing younger emerging artists, it feels apt that Grace now sits between AUT, Whitecliffe, and Elam, at the heart of fine arts education in Tāmaki. 

Sof caught up with gallery director Emil Scheffmann about the move, as well as their current joint exhibition showing Atarangi Anderson and Georgia Tikaputini Douglas Hood, Mau Āhua.