B St Gallery
Mum and AD
Ladybug_bebe and Nia Vavao
December – March 2026
Browne Street cafe, Avondale
B St Gallery
Te Whau is brimming with creative talent, yet opportunities to exhibit locally remain limited. In response, ArtsWhau has partnered with the team at Browne St to establish B St Gallery, an evolving exhibition space inside one of Avondale’s popular cafés.
“We’re especially keen to support local artists, providing a platform to share your work with the community,” says Sam from Browne St.
With zero commission on sales, artists keep 100% of any proceeds, making this an accessible and supportive option for emerging and established creatives alike.
Following a public call-out, we received interest from over 25 visual artists, the majority based right here in the Whau. While cafés and restaurants are sometimes overlooked as serious exhibition venues, B St Gallery is proving to be a valued space where art is seen, celebrated, and purchased by locals.
This partnership demonstrates what can happen when local business and community arts join forces, creating visibility for artists and a creative experience for everyone.
Mum and AD
Mum and AD uncovers and explores the world of vibrant colour and imagery felt around Avondale. Often our community can be portrayed in ways that present themselves as contradictory to the lived experience. For this work it was important for us to share mum’s perspective on how she has experienced Avondale as a Sāmoan woman. Her alofa and tautua to make things work so that we can continue to live in this beautiful community remind us to reflect on where we’re placed and how it makes us feel. People and places are showcased through this work by way of mixed media, the crossover of these practices reflect the different textures and layers that make up the fabric of what is a snippet into Mum’s life in AD.
Nia Vavao is a full Samoan multi-disciplinary artist, born and raised in Avondale. Her creative works explore storytelling mainly from the mediums of photography and videography. Life in a community like Avondale remains colourful, and continues to inform her art practice by way of visually expressing the importance of people and place.The constant relationship and tension between the two, what it looks like and how it evolves. What makes Avondale home is the people and for Nia this includes her aiga ( family ). Her arts practice first started in 2018 under the support of Creative Souls project: Fresh One. A collective of rangatahi mentored by Deahne Stone and Leonie Freeman. Through this opportunity, Nia’s creative voice was nurtured through practice by Fresh One’s opportunities. In 2025 Nia returns to her practice with the work of Mum and AD made alongside artist; Ladybug_bebe.
Talofa Lava, I go by Ladybug_bebe for my artist name. My artwork uses painting, drawing, and digital media to explore and express ideas that are difficult to put into words. I am interested in Pacific studies and art history, both subjects that I am passionate about learning more and utilise what I’ve been taught in order to know how I carry myself not just in artworks but in daily life. My art journey has also been inspired by my upbringing in Avondale, as I live here from childhood till now. I tend to consume films, readings and different media that link to the aesthetic and teachings that are similar to my own grounds and being able to feel that my identity is properly represented through my artworks.
Previous exhibitions
JESSIE KANJI – Browne St. Artist September -December 2025
Jessie Kanji is a multi-disciplinary artist, researcher and educator. She specialised in print, graduating with a Postgraduate Diploma of Fine Arts with distinction from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 2023. In her practice-led research, she has worked across the related fields of drawing, photography, paper-making, textiles, and ceramics.
Informed by her background in medical science, her art searches for the balance between order and chaos. Patterns in her inner world form the lens by which she sees the world. Kanji primarily uses print as a method of thinking to access cultural exchange, memory and meaning. In the amber-like qualities of ink, her work seeks to evoke the concept of rasa – a state of total absorption and emotional resonance.
Jessie was awarded a fellowship award to complete Master of Fine Arts at Rhode Island School of Design which began this month and any sales will contribute to supporting this opportunity.
ARWEN FLOWERS – Browne St. Artist June-September 2025
New Zealand artist Arwen Flowers (MVA) examines body-held and felt learning through her painting practice. Each painting contains traces of a unique visual language encoded with references to places, people, objects, memories and experiences. While applying and removing mediums with wiping and scrubbing motions, Flowers explores states of physical and material control. Each mark results from proximity encounters with prepared surfaces and is influenced by sensory-based engagement and the influence of borrowed colour while working with and against abjection. Flowers’ painting practice questions notions of care and agency.
