Currently working on uploading all past exhibitions, so these pages are incomplete and disorganised. Please get in touch if you would like further information on anything. Cheers, Zoe (Oct 2025)

Zoe Brand

GUARANTEED NOT TO TARNISH (An exhibition of commodifiable fragments)

13 February - 6 March 2021

Masterworks Gallery NZ

I’ve always been attracted to the language of advertising. Buying a used car, another unnecessary kitchen appliance or a fancy diamond ring the sell is often the same, generic and universal. I love to trawl secondhand online marketplaces not only for the things that are sold, but also the language used to describe it, “not the best quality, but still good”. One such lucky score was a 50kg bulk lot of  “frosted perspex blocks, ex-jewellery display. All in good used condition” from a now defunct jewellery store. This find has become the basis of the works in this show.  

I habitually gather texts from anywhere and everywhere for my work. For this exhibition however, I have specifically delved into books and catalogues about PopArt and conceptual artists, show card/ sign writing books from the early 1900’s and general advertising ephemera. Lifting words and phrases that, once removed from their original context, engraved into a new surface and material then placed on the wall or on a body allows the texts to open up to any number of possible meanings.

These pendants and objects act as signs but are also fragments of conversations and thoughts that loosely tell the story of my comic/tragic relationship with routine consumption and everyday consumerism.

This exhibition takes texts that you might find at the grocery store i.e. “TAKE YOUR CHOICE FROM THIS CHOICE LOT” and texts that have seemingly been plucked out general conversation such as “I DON’T KNOW, BUT I FEEL BETTER”*,

*which in actual fact is what artist John Baldessari is quoted as saying in response to cremating all his artworks made from 1953-1966.

I’ve always been attracted to the language used in advertising. I love knowing full well that I’m being manipulated into wanting things I really don’t need, luring me towards a lifestyle that isn’t remotely like the one I aspire to live, the promise of a better way to do things with a more efficient system. I love when a sales assistant is so exceptional at their job that I don’t feel the least bit ripped off for buying the bigger, more expensive version of the thing I wasn’t looking for in the first place. But this is a rarity. Often my consumption comes with a decent dose of buyer’s remorse and good dollop of guilt. Do we really need more things?! Of course if you think I’m missing the irony of being someone who makes things and asks you to buy them, then perhaps you might be reminded of my last name…