an evolving group exhibition
Nigel Brown, Jeff Thomson, Graham Bennett, Gerda Leenards, Don Binney, Michael Smither, Wayne Seyb, JS Parker, Kathryn Madill
1 March to 2 April 2016
An evolving exhibition of painting, mezzotints and sculpture by prominent NZ artists
Alongside new works, the exhibition also includes some rare pieces: a painting from Nigel Brown’s important 1990s series on questions of NZ identity, and drawings of the Port Hills by Don Binney. Jeff Thomson’s 2006 map of Australia is from a period when he exhibited in a number of regional and major public galleries in that country; we also have new corrugated iron works by Jeff Thomson in the exhibition.
This will be an ‘evolving’ exhibition which will change throughout March… sold works may be released during the exhibition.
Two exquisite paintings by Gerda Leenards capture Dusky Sound at the misty and mysterious edge of the day, following her most recent visit to Fiordland at the invitation of the Dept of Conservation – these paintings are available individually but also work as a sublime diptych.
Michael Smither’s Snowstorm Hawkduns is a tour de force, up close with snow whipped off the mountains of Central Otago in a surreal painting on a large scale now rare for this sought after New Zealand painter. By contrast, Kathryn Madill’s new mezzotints like Woman, Millstone, are compelling on an intimate scale, of inner and outward journeys as so many of her works are. There is a summer note here, in Pastorale, a delightful etching and drypoint with a breathless quality.
A late addition to the exhibition is Graham Bennett’s World Apart. His works are finely balanced and delicately crafted, never more so than in this work in native timber, suggesting canoes, sails, and segments of the map of the world, almost floating in space. Shadow play is a major factor in his later series about the tipping point of our balance with the environment, expressed in Heavy Shadows #5, and Echo where the work disappears against the wall, so the shadow becomes the statement.
Nigel Brown’s Two Chiefs Diptych references the ethnographic etchings and drawings of Sydney Parkinson, who travelled on Cook’s first voyage to NZ and sought to capture the ethnic characteristics and the moko (tattoo) of the people they encountered. Brown, however, recontextualises these figures into the landscape, under an arch of icon status.
We have two more Nigel Brown paintings arriving, images will be posted soon. Please enquire if you would like to see high resolution images of these or other works.