Observing the choices made by those who are fully absorbed in their own questions is a profound pleasure. The outcomes of such choices often reveal themselves across various fields, carrying both positive and negative qualities at once.
What, then, characterises a choice made by someone deeply immersed in their own questioning within art? And why do we call it beautiful, find it intriguing, and sometimes feel elevated simply by spending time in its presence?
An artist’s cumulative choices substantiate form as reality itself. Joy on Mute opens up five realities cultivated by five individuals: Glen Snow, Henry Turner, Michael Prosée, Sang-ah Choi, and Sione Faletau, who have built their own through the joy of shaping form.
That ineffable joy accumulated within form requires time. Snow’s time assembles. Turner’s time leaps. Prosée’s time compounds. Choi’s time slits. Faletau’s time trembles. And the actualisation of this joy asks for nothing more than time on mute, stripped of the noise of words.
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About the Artists
Glen Snow
Glen Snow is an artist and a writer who has completed a PhD with Scholarly Creative Work at Waipapa Taumata Rau, The University of Auckland, with a thesis titled Painting and the Materiality of Thought. Snow has curated exhibitions, such as Materialised (Two Rooms Gallery, 2017), and has written catalogues such as More than a Picture: The Painting as Object (2019). As a lecturer and supervisor, Snow has been teaching on the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Fine Arts at Whitecliffe College for 15 years. Snow’s wider arts connections include gallery commissions, writing exhibition texts, reviews, and giving public talks. His exhibition practice includes two solo shows with Antoinette Godkin Gallery in 2015 and 2017; a commission for Te Tuhi Project Wall, Echo Glyphs (Te Tuhi, 2015); Testing Ground (George Fraser Gallery, 2019); and Altered Seating Plan (DEMO, 2024). His work is held in the Arts House Trust collection, and he was selected for the Wallace Art Awards touring exhibitions in 2014 and 2016.
Henry Turner
Henry Turner is an artist who was born in Papatahora, Aotearoa New Zealand, and currently lives and works in Kā Pākihi Whakatekateka, Aotearoa, and Frankfurt, Germany, where he studies at the Städelschule Academy of Fine Arts
Michael Prosée
Michael Prosée is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. He graduated from Unitec Te Whare Wananga o Wairaka in 2012. Prosée held a solo exhibition, Scallop Immersion (Sanc Gallery, 2025), and co-curated the group show Pushing Parallels with Abbie La Rooy and Kiki Hall (Arts House Trust at Pah Homestead, 2024). Prosée also manages the artist-run space Which Way on Upper Queen Street with Josh Whitaker.
Sang-ah Choi
Sang-ah Choi is a Korean-born visual artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Choi received a BFA and MFA in Painting from Ewha Womans University and an MFA in Painting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has held solo exhibitions including Slit: The Eye of the Painting (d/p, 2025), Landscape: about space and time (PCC Sylvania North View Gallery, 2019), Humming in the Ubiquitous Beauty (Schneider Museum of Art, 2015), (in)Tangible Being (Fairbanks Gallery, 2014), All you can eat—Holiday everyday, Transcontinental flower and bird painting: NY to OR, Rainbow (Portland Art Museum, 2013), Insatiable Appetite (Doosan Gallery New York, 2010), and “Kyu”-Layering (Project Space Sarubia, 2009). Her works are part of the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, Portland Art Museum, New York Public Library, and UNEEC Culture and Education Foundation.
Sione Faletau
Sione Faletau is an interdisciplinary artist of Tongan descent from the villages of Taunga, Vava‘u and Lakepa, Tongatapu, currently based in Ōtara, South Auckland. Faletau holds a Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland (Elam School of Fine Arts, 2022), where his doctoral research explored Tongan masculinity from an Indigenous perspective through