Celebrating New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week 2014, Crave proudly presents an exhibition of two prominent Deaf artists - Rachel Coppage and Abbie Twiss. 

Rachel was brought up orally, when sign languages were banned. She never knew that the Deaf community existed until a one year stay with a Deaf host family; returning home as a new person with increased self-esteem and more confidence. Rachel uses her art as a ‘cultural bridge’ to inform the public about the beauty of sign language through hand shapes that symbolise an English word – parallels of two languages – that everyone can understand and access in a visual medium.

Abbie grew up encouraged to use sign, but this was before NZSL was well developed and long before it became one of NZ’s three official languages. So from the time she was small, Abbie learnt lots of Signed English language and had brilliant homemade picture books with printed signs. 

Abbie says "art gives me a way of expressing my feelings, happiness, sadness or solemnity, and my view of the world, just as happens with other artists. A lot of my paintings have a social/political purpose. I also often put in deliberate strangeness, a touch of mystery". Abbie's iconic work uses comic book and pop culture imagery, with acrylic, oil based enamel and water based enamel, or enamacrylic mediums.