Ans Westra & Wayne Youle

The strength of the collaboration lies in its balance, the reason it succeeds where many posthumous projects falter. Westra’s photographs are not relics but living taonga, carrying the attention that first brought these moments into being. Onto them Youle layers pigment and story that settle lightly, like an epiphyte on a tree trunk. One provides grounding, the other texture and new life. Neither dominates. The work carries a double energy, thoughtful yet mischievous, serious yet winking. In this exchange Westra returns, her images honouring ordinary lives with dignity and reminding us that the everyday world contains its own theatre. Through Youle’s touch, the conversation continues, alive, and shared.

Following his return from a residency in Sydney where Youle made a series of collage works, {Suite} Director David Alsop suggested that he ask Ans if she would like to contribute prints for him to make collage. Ans loved the idea and so began a dynamic union between two artists who had great respect for each other.

The first phase of the collaboration saw Youle add sign vinyl material to Ans’ silver gelatin prints. Now, following the digitisation of Ans’ archive, Wayne uses technology to collage onto Ans’ images, with the resultant works printed at scale.

The debut took place in New York City in 2025 when Wayne worked on Ans’ images photographed in New York City in 1987, just before the stock market crash. The second body of work focussed on a 1963 school journal that Ans photographed for, titled ‘The Circus Comes to Town’.

For more information about the artists click on Wayne or Ans.

Quotation from Dina Jezdić

The Circus Comes to Town | Wayne Youle & Ans Westra

{Suite}

21 Mar - 24 Apr 2026

Following their successful debut in New York in 2025, {Suite) is pleased to present the first showing in Aotearoa New Zealand of digital collage works by Wayne Youle on Ans...

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