Wishbone - Emma Wallbanks & Chloe Rose Taylor

‘WISHBONE’ PUBLIC RECORD 2026

CHLOE ROSE TAYLOR
EMMA WALLBANKS

Walking along a worn out path towards an ancient shrine, a traveller places a coin on the lap of a relic. Taking note of the soft autumn light dappled through the maple trees, industrial noise is heard from the lot next door. However, the garden remains an intact sanctuary preserved in a time warp. A wish is made. A bow of thanks is offered back to the occupants of the shrine. 

Ōtautahi artists Chloe Rose Taylor and Emma Wallbanks present - ’WISHBONE’ the second collaborative exhibition under the banner of White Noise and the Woolgatherer. 

Both artists work intuitively, favouring repurposed and discarded materials in a re-working of both form and context. Taylor responds to Wallbanks’ one-off garment pieces with a rethink on the conventional button. Hand dyed antique silk, sourced personally from Japan are adorned with silver fixtures that are beaten, pickled, sometimes un-pickled, inspired by wishbones and unusual shapes. Together they embody a worn rebellion, as well as a tender approach to design. 

Alongside the collaborative garment pieces are a series of Taylor’s hand-beaten earrings and one-off domestic sculptures, as well as a single framed series of analog photographs taken by Wallbanks on a recent pilgrimage to Japan. Collectively both artists have spent considerable time across Asian countries, elements of inspiration from these travels are evident in the work. Taylor’s contemporary jewellery and sculptural work pairs with Wallbanks’ garments in a way that embodies both fine media with working class energy. The works are at once elegant and industrial, underpinned by a shared need to challenge the status quo. 

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Emma Wallbanks is a New Zealand multi-disciplinary artist based in Ōtautahi. Graduating 2019, from University of Canterbury with an undergraduate degree in sculpture, and a Masters in film. Alongside her exhibiting work, Emma Wallbanks founded her own independent clothing label in 2019. Branded ‘Fascinating but Potentially Dangerous’. Akin the her visual practice Wallbanks’ label focuses on the ‘edge’ as a thematic starting point.

Clothing pieces are all one offs and treated much like her earlier sculptural works and video installations, insofar as their repurposed nature and rebellious sensibility. Transferring skills developed through her work as a sculpture undergraduate, her garments are all constructed through unconventional pattern cutting means. 

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Chloe Rose Taylor is a multidisciplinary contemporary craft maker based in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Taylor holds a BA in Applied Arts - Textiles from Ara Institute (2009) and a BA in Contemporary Jewellery from Whitireia (2013). She has exhibited in public galleries throughout Aotearoa and abroad, most recently her work was included in an exhibition featuring Dowse collection pieces at Galerie Handwerk in Munich.

She has also had significant solo presentations at Objectspace (2016) and Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery (2015). Her work is held in major public collections as well as many private collections. She is represented by The National gallery in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Her work takes the form of contemporary jewellery, textile objects, and furniture, as well as carefully assembled and photographed still life arrangements.

 Taylor’s is a practice of connection, often centred around found materials and forms that speak to her. Sometimes these materials are manipulated, formed and set. Sometimes they are perfect ready-mades just as they are. She likes to push boundaries with her material choices, ever questioning ideas of what is considered precious or valuable. Her expressive language of object-craft is amplified by her metalworking skills. Hammered and patinated surfaces encourage close inspection; imaginative furnishings and expanded gallery settings transform the architecture of the exhibition space and give the sense of a wider world to her creativity.

In addition to vases, furniture and multi-media object art, her jewellery work features ongoing earring collection ‘Cave Drawings’. This series uses a line-art visual language with playful titles, reflecting what she has been pondering. Inspired by the 1994 film adaptation of The Flintstones, much of Taylor’s personal aesthetic is a tribute to palaeolithic, stone- age forms, recast in a humorous light.