Wiese Family Wines x Stephen Ellis
Each month, Boutique Connection sponsors Sanderson Contemporary Art’s exhibition openings.
This is a collaboration of wine and art pairing where we pair a handcrafted New Zealand wine with the artist’s hero piece. The project explores how taste and texture can echo a visual experience and perhaps even enhance it.
I’m exploring the non-verbal dialogue between art and wine and pairing each artist’s hero piece with a wine that echoes its mood, energy, and emotion.
The aim is to translate visual expression into taste, inviting viewers to experience the artwork through another sensory lens. Each match is intuitive and collaborative, celebrating both the artist’s vision and the craft of our boutique producers.
Stephen Ellis
Stephen Ellis’ drawings are monochromatic, technically masterful, yet warm and nostalgic. Every object feels carefully considered, every shadow purposeful. Rather than simply depicting a scene, Stephen creates spaces filled with memory, where familiar objects invite us to reflect on the stories they carry.
For this exhibition, Undertow, Stephen continues exploring ideas of place, nostalgia, and the subtle pull of memory. They ask us to spend time looking, discovering small details that might otherwise be overlooked.
Red Boy St Clair
Stephen describes the work as "a very nostalgic piece... based on the composition of Thomas Lawrence's portrait The Red Boy or Master Charles Lambton (1825)." That connection between past and present became the starting point for the pairing.
Although the work is rendered almost entirely in lamp black and subtle tones, it never feels heavy. The familiar objects become symbols rather than possessions, each one holding fragments of memory and place.
The wine comes from Wiese Family Wines in Central Otago... a young couple from two very different parts of the world... South Africa and Argentina... who fell in love with Pinot Noir in Sonoma before eventually finding home in Central Otago.
This Pinot Noir was a surprise to me. Rather than the dark, brooding fruit often associated with Central Otago, it sits in a brighter register. Think red plum, raspberry and red peach skin, carried by fine tannins that give the wine shape without weight.
Then, just as the fruit begins to settle, another layer appears... a gravitas emerges with a savoury edge and a delicate saline finish that lingers.
Stephen's drawing gradually uncovers memories hidden within ordinary objects, while the Pinot slowly builds across the palate like a moody orchestral piece... gathering depth before reaching crescendo.
There's also a shared sense of nostalgia. Stephen looks back through art history and personal memory, while the Pinot feels familiar yet unpredictable.
Enjoy!
- Renée Dale
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Stephen Ellis
Undertow | Hvac29th April - 24th May 2026
Sanderson are pleased to present the exhibition Undertow | Hvac by Stephen Ellis.
The exhibition features a continuation of the artist’s Undertow series, as well as showcasing the beginning of an exciting new series by the artist titled ‘Hvac’.
During his 2025 residency at the Dunedin School of Art Ellis initiated the suite of drawings under the title - Undertow. The scenes in these drawings are set on Ōtepoti’s Saint Clair Beach, a formative coastal landscape from the artist’s childhood.
The brooding skies depicted quote the work of of Colin McCahon, who like the artist was born in Ōtepoti and studied at the Dunedin School of Art.
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Read more here.
