About the Artist
It is with great sadness we acknowledge the passing of Philip Trusttum in March 2026. He was a huge force in contemporary New Zealand art, vigorous, expressive, intense, and was a mentor and support to many other artists.
A selection of his works are now available through The Diversion Gallery from the Trusttum estate, including a few of his significant Alphabet series, one rare work from his Rugby World Cup suite, and his more recent Signs series, a commentary on the signage banning access for dogs, cyclists and others as Christchurch rebuilt itself after the earthquakes.
Philip Trusttum is recognised as one of the major expressive painters of his generation, known particularly for his large works full of energy, colour, and vigour, inspired by the everyday world as he engaged with it, whether politics, events, family, stories, and objects.
Philip Trusttum graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury in 1964. In 1967 he travelled on a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council scholarship, and worked in Europe and North America. He was part of ANZART at the Edinburgh Arts Festival, 1984 – the same year he exhibited on New York’s 57th Street at the Jill Kornblee Gallery. He has shown in Sydney, New York, Melbourne, Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch, and is represented in all major public and private collections within New Zealand.
Details on the Works
His Signs series offered a subversive commentary on the domestic prohibitions around Christchurch—at the entrance to parks, roads, building sites, pathways. These paintings have the pared-back colour and lighter touch of long experience, while still retaining Trusttum’s trademark energy and edgy humour.
Cyclists appear determined to ride out of the red circle of prohibition, small eager dogs strain as the leash against the strong red diagonal insisting ‘No Go!’ Trusttum’s viewpoint is typically skewed, with the signs viewed from oblique angles, a sense of squashed space, making everyday street language into something strange and disruptive, a push back against authority. Of the first Signs works exhibited in 2016, reviewer Edward Hanfling observed:
‘One registers the sensation of fleeting glimpses, as if from someone actualy riding a bike, of movement and shifting qualities of light, fragments and ruptures, glances down, and things suddenly looming close… Trusttum’s paintings are different from many other forms of contemporary art in that they are so damned delicious.’ – Art New Zealand issue 164
More About the Artist
Trusttum’s Alphabet series were works on a very accessible domestic scale, evolving initially from a single letter as a starting point. By the end of this series, they had evolved to the point the letter was often quite obscure, as other aesthetic interests took over in the composition.
In 2011 he produced a major series focused on rugby players, their movements and forms, presented in the manner of puppet forms. He arranged the limbs in different ways on the wall, photographed these against different backgrounds and created one-off monoprints on aluminium panels. These were the last of his Rugby World Cup series, the depiction of falling players influenced by the Christchurch earthquakes.
Click on the image for more information on each work, and price.
