Erica van Zon draws inspiration for her practice from her personal fascinations, memories, and encounters with the local and wider world. Predominantly an installation artist, Van Zon takes the familiar and renders loving parodies and crooked translations. Tenderly made and although awkward, her appropriations are always studied and thoughtful. Examining shared visual cultures with nostalgia as well as a sense of the ridiculous, Van Zon creates little touching tributes that are striking, imperfect and delightful.

In Newtown Sandwich Van Zon gives a nod to the working-class icon and authentically kitsch signage of a Newtown bakery on the corner of Riddiford and Constable Streets. Here she has taken great care to finely replicate the sign by hand beading, bringing it to life as a picnic lunch complete with white napkin and checked tablecloth.

Erica van Zon (born 1979) is a Wellington-based artist, graduating from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 2007 with a Master in Fine Arts. Van Zon’s work has been included in international and national group exhibitions and she has had solo shows at public galleries around the country. In 2007 she won the inaugural Iris Fisher scholarship at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Waitakere, in 2014 she was artist-in-residence at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and in 2016 she was Artist in Residence at Tylee Cottage, Whanganui.