Colere x Katherine Throne

Each month, Boutique Connection supports 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.

Katherine Throne

Katherine Throne is a contemporary painter based in Wānaka whose work is deeply inspired by the resilience, energy and beauty of the natural world. Through her works she captures not simply the appearance of flowers and gardens, but the vitality they hold.

Her paintings immerse the viewer in a world where light, movement and texture become almost tangible, inviting us to feel the lavishness of petals, the friction of stems and the energy that exists within a flourishing garden.

The Swing of Things

When Katherine described her hero piece, The Swing of Things, she spoke of her garden in summer happiness, where an afternoon breeze moves through the flowers while birds and insects create a constant sense of motion. The painting isn't simply about a garden; it's about the feeling of being immersed within one. There is warmth, generosity and an effortless vitality that invites you to linger.

Beneath that joy sits the quiet philosophy of her exhibition, Labour of Love. Katherine speaks of reverence for nature and for those who tend it. The garden's beauty isn't accidental; it is cultivated through patience, observation and care. The Swing of Things feels like the reward for that devotion... a fleeting moment when everything is alive, flourishing and perfectly in balance.

Colere - Florette 2023

The wine immediately recalled the atmosphere of the painting for me. A blend of 60% Sauvignon Blanc and 40% Pinot Noir, Florette carries delicate floral aromatics, bright citrus and gentle summer berry fruit, all wrapped in a freshness that feels like a warm breeze moving through a garden.

Then there was the name; Florette, which evokes flowers blooming, quietly reinforcing Katherine's celebration of the garden and the beauty that comes from careful cultivation.

Knowing the vineyard is organically farmed adds another layer to the pairing. Like Katherine's garden, it is a place where biodiversity is welcomed, where insects, wildflowers and healthy soils all play their part. Both the painting and the wine celebrate the beauty that emerges when nature is given the space to flourish.

Together, the work and the wine celebrate nature in motion. Both remind us that beauty is rarely created in an instant, but through patience, care and quiet attention. They invite us to slow down, breathe deeply and savour the simple pleasure of a summer afternoon when everything feels wonderfully alive.

Enjoy!

- Renée Dale

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Katherine Throne
Labour of Love

24 June - 19 July 2026

Sanderson are pleased to present the exhibition Labour of Love featuring a new suite of paintings by Katherine Throne.

 The suite of canvasses making up Labour of Love burst with botanical energy. Based on the garden that wraps around her studio, these paintings are a celebration of the garden that Wanaka-based Katherine Throne has nurtured from the thin soil in Otago. 

 Alongside their joyous optimism, these paintings have a definitive physicality. Like the plants she has lovingly coaxed outside, the work on display is the result of hard-won labour.  The act of creating is filled with trial, error, success and failure, and yet for Throne, the urge to create is constant. The intertwining of her labour both outside and in the studio are the subject of this exhibition.

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- Dr Penelope Jackson MNZM

Read more here.

VILAURA x Ray Haydon

Each month, Boutique Connection supports 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.

Ray Haydon

Ray Haydon is a contemporary New Zealand artist whose work explores form, movement, and emotional energy through abstraction. His practice is intuitive and expressive, often inviting the viewer to experience feeling before meaning.

I met Ray over a year ago, but I had never seen his work out in the wild before! It wasn’t until 2025 that I noticed one of his elegant works appear on New Zealand’s Best Homes with Phil Spencer (Season 2, Episode 1). Featured in the Hahei House designed by Paul Clarke of Studio2, Ray’s sculpture feels almost inseparable from the timber architecture almost as though it belongs to the house itself. While I was disappointed that Phil didn’t pause to acknowledge the piece, I felt a quiet thrill in recognising it instantly as Ray’s work.

Spring

Spring has a sense of lift and release in the work and is a visual expression of freedom and optimism. Ray has spoken about his enthusiasm for green as a new colour when creating the piece, a sense of freshness.

The work feels alive… buoyant.

It doesn’t sit heavily in a space; instead, it draws the eye upward, suggesting growth, motion, and the promise of something new. When asked to translate the work into another sense, Ray, a man of few words, promptly described it like drinking champagne… effervescent.

VILAURA - Marlborough Rosé Extra Brut Rosé Méthode Traditionnelle2022

The wine paired with Spring was the VILAURA 2022 Marlborough Rosé, disgorged in Spring and perfect for this artwork.

VILAURA is an independent New Zealand sparkling house founded outside the constraints of corporate winemaking. In just a few years, they’ve made a significant impact onf the local wine scene, collecting gold medals, trophies, and multiple Wine of the Show awards.

What connects Spring and VILAURA Rosé isn’t just effervescence…it’s energy.

Both the artwork and the wine move upward. Both feel light yet intentional. Both are expressions of independence and optimism, freshness and freedom, made with care and conviction rather than excess.

Together, they speak the same language … one of renewal, lift, and quiet joy. A pairing that doesn’t try to impress, but instead invites you to pause, look up, and feel uplifted.

- Renée Dale

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RAY HAYDON
Seventy Five

11th Nov - 7th Dec 2025

Sanderson are pleased to present the exhibition Seventy Five by Ray Haydon. Celebrating his seventy fifth year the exhibition explores the artist's dynamic and varied oeuvre spanning over two decades.

Haydon’s practice is celebrated for its deep engagement with the physical and conceptual properties of space. His works are held in many private collections worldwide, and have featured in major sculpture exhibitions in Aotearoa including NZ Sculpture OnShore, Shapeshifter Wellington, NZ Sculpture on the Gulf, and the Aotearoa Art Fair Sculpture Court. Haydon’s works have been featured in publications including Art News, Art New Zealand, ArtZone,The New Zealand Herald, Urbis, Denizen and Sothebys magazine.

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Read more here.