It what may be Johns last exhibition of Wellington scenes we will see our city streets captured by his heavily applied and beautifully sculptured use of rich oil paint on board.
These rich textural paintings illustrate the skill of John’s ability to form fields of grasses and seeding flowers, stunning portraiture or the bold form of intricate Victorian architecture from paint that is almost “falling off the canvas”.
Alicja is expressive with her work using colour and gestural marks to build on the emotional qualities she feels within these landscapes. The combination of large gestural marks and bold use of colour leads you on a journey into the landscape whilst still exploring the nature of the medium. Alicja has experimented with different mediums but is always drawn back to working with oil saying “I like the way oils behave, it suits my painting style and I like the way it holds its colour”.
Da McLaren (b. 1967) turned to painting in December 2021 which squarely places Divine Geometry as early work (his 20th to 31st paintings). This series of micro-pointillist surfaces are created by layers of raw powder pigments on plywood or canvas, in geometric divisions, fixed with varnish and permanent UFA. The result is like sandpaper to the touch but velvet to the eye. Up close, or from a distance, these works show a graceful arrangement and a resonance of interacting colour. Such qualities are unable to be reproduced in print.
Exhibition: 12th June – Sat 5th July
All artwork available to purchase prior to the opening
We are pleased to invite you to view a display celebrating our amazing city.
Featuring new work from Alistair McDonald, recent arrivals from Raymond Jennings and a collection of work from our storeroom by Brent Redding, Mary Mai, Julian Knap, Lex Benson-Cooper, and George Loizou.
A selection of Sean Beldon’s ‘The long white cloud’ is still on view.
I love the way the Aotearoa skies and clouds enhance the landscape. It gives it depth, nuance and at times an ethereal quality. Then there are the cobalt blue days that can make the tussocks shimmer in the hills or low clouds that brush the surface, leaving a slither of bright light in between.
My latest exhibition is a selection of places with a unique New Zealandness about them – starting off in the Hawke’s Bay, dipping through the Central Plateau and ending on the Cook Strait ferry.
At the intersection of music and visual art, an alchemy takes place between the two practices. Both inspiring and influencing each other’s forms, shapes, with colours, textures and notes resonating in contrast and harmony. It is impossible to believe that the two, either consciously or unconsciously do not form a symbiotic relationship.
Patterson reduces figures and musicality into arithmetical diagrams, breaking up and re-assembling them into abstracted and unexpected formations. At the same time, he maintains a figure recognisable amongst the new order, although viewed from a new aesthetic. All the while miraculously combines balance and movement with a glorious range of colour.
Kevin’s retro subconscious trips back to his childhood, via his landscape paintings have taken on a fluency that reflects the accumulative years of dedication to paint.
Despite sell out exhibitions, Kevin remains grounded “I started out not having a clue what to do or how to do it, but by experimenting I have found a style I enjoy and I have become part of my paintings.”
Still non-specific; they are evocations of a mood rather than true recordings. Reminded of a place (or time) viewers often feel a very strong and personal connection to specific paintings.
With life is so busy, now more than ever, it is more important to take the long way home’.
‘I got hooked on the ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) style through an exhibition of Ando Hiroshige’s fans at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London – bold flat expressive colours, clean line drawings and stories of another era and culture. I have tried to imagine how Hiroshige (1797-1858) and his contemporary Hokusai may have shown views of modern Wellington, Auckland, Queenstown, Wanaka, Sydney, Melbourne and Taranaki if they were alive today’. – Alistair McDonald
Congratulations to George Arevshatov on his sell out exhibition.
Commissions Available
There is something deeply appealing about George’s birds, as they perch in a light and dark abstract paint space. Their life force is captured by assured brushstrokes of intense colour further adding to the contrast of shadow and light.
Kate has completed a degree at Ilam School of Fine Arts with a Major in painting. Before taking on her degree, Kate studied printmaking, sculpture and photography.
Kate’s work explores the hierarchy of image and object through a process that draws on seriality and originality.
Repeated botanic studies form a background while, often, a lone native bird is depicted. The patterning effect works to devalue the botanical image; it becomes design, wallpaper-esque, whereas the depicted native birds stand by themselves. A whitewash is applied over the surface, simultaneously pulling some of the botanical images into the mid and foreground. In doing this, the background almost acquires a status of subject as the native birds fall between the fore and mid-ground. The combined result is uncanny; nothing seems quite as it should.
The concept behind this series of work draws on establishing a connection of Kate’s heritage as a New Zealand European.
I use accident and randomness to generate the image, rather than any preconceived plan. By doing this, I make paintings that teach me, surprise me, and at their best,
mystify me.
“These paintings fall out of me, and I don’t quite understand how.”
Contemporary artist Javier Murcia employs a fusion of mixed media to materialize a language of form and texture in a narrative way, harnessing its potency to vocalize ideas with unwavering strength and emotion.
Observing the minutest surfaces of organisms, cells, and atoms, as well as the vast landscapes of planets and the cosmic fabric is common nowadays with the modern technology. The visual similarities between these scales are often surprisingly striking.
With the use of a creative language of form, texture, and colour, MaTi (Matter & Time) works construct captivating, otherworldly images that evoke either of these realms or both simultaneously.
“For me it has always come down to the drawing – I’ve spent decades at it.” And true to his word, beneath every one of Bill’s exuberant paintings, is a carefully thought out, skilfully executed under-drawing. “It’s where I work things out – composition, lighting, perspective.”
Making mixed media artworks using gold leaf metal and 23.5 carat gold is a labour of love. I first discovered gold leaf when travelling through Laos and Tibet back in 1999. Whilst there I visited several Buddhist temples and saw statues covered entirely in tiny pieces of gold leaf, each piece being placed, ceremonially, by worshippers. They looked completely amazing! I bought some small pieces of gold leaf home, and occasionally chanced upon them as I searched through old pictures for artistic inspiration. The image of the golden Buddhas stayed with me, and slowly over the years an idea distilled, as I began experimenting with gold leaf as a background onto which I could montage my work.
I live in Edinburgh, and I have a long history of spending time out in the mountains and landscapes of Scotland where I love to walk and climb and cycle. I find inspiration for my artwork both in direct contact with nature and in galleries and museums, botanical gardens and woodlands. Referencing religious iconography, whether it be the gilded Buddhas of Tibet and Laos or Catholic icons of the Italian baroque, by placing my botanical photography and acrylic paint images against a gold leaf background I hope to remind viewers of the value, spiritual and otherwise, of Mother Nature. As well as religious iconography, I draw inspiration from the delicacy of botanical drawings and awe-inspiring European Romantic landscape paintings.
To make a gold leaf mixed media artwork takes about 3 weeks from start to finish, with roughly 10 layers of shellac and glaze varnishes to complete a finished piece.
I like the idea of an artwork charging and maturing quietly as it sits on a wall. The gold leaf in these artworks will, over many years, change gently in appearance as it slowly oxidises giving a unique look to each piece. I think it’s all too easy to stop noticing the work we surround ourselves with but if an artwork keeps changing slowly over time, I’d like to think that the viewer’s awareness and enjoyment of the work is prolonged.
We are pleased to have a collection of John Badcock artworks from a private collection available for sale.
John’s artwork is identifiable by his heavily applied and beautifully sculptured use of rich oil paint on board. These rich textural paintings illustrate the skill of John’s ability to form fields of grasses and seeding flowers, stunning portraiture or the bold form of intricate Victorian architecture from paint that is almost “falling off the canvas”.
Klijn’s paintings are emotional and atmospheric, smouldering even, with an underlying sense of danger and darkness, while remarkably retaining a sense of light or shelter – a calm region for his figures and the viewer to inhabit.
Job often alludes to an underlying fear and insecurity ruling his work due to his lack of formal training in painting, but also recognises that this plays to the style and final look of his pieces.
Job states that he “starts his paintings by trying to create a ‘background’, a rough sky, a portrait of ‘weather’ that reflects a mood or sense of moodiness that eventually leads to a more specific idea in what direction to take it”.
“I use as much recycled material as I can and my process involves a lot of adding and subtracting of layers, texture, soil, thinning, scraping, burning, swiping etc, until there is a feeling of emotive ‘rightness’. The result often being a multitude of trial and errors”.
This penchant for brooding turbulence and turmoil as a subject, is in the end, tempered by a residual warmth and richness achieved by the process of the art making. Attentive labour and restoration, building complex layers and beauty.
Sometimes, depending on the works ‘idea’, Job will add a figure.
“I sketch endlessly from collected images that show poses I like to achieve, often mathematically re calculating the proportions of limbs and bodies to marry them together in one final sketch”.
Not all of the ‘moodscapes’ include a human form but most do. Job’s figures exude purposefulness, not seeming overwhelmed in their surrounds. They are clean cut, well dressed, stylish even, clearly comfortable and in control in their environs.
Materials from another past with a promising future!
“I owe much of my inspiration to the experiences of life in sophisticated capitals of the world, it is also a fact that my work deals largely with people, a theme of eternal interest and valid everywhere, in Paris, New York, Auckland, Timbuctoo.”
Piera lived and worked for many years in Paris. While painting in Moscow later on, she became the first New Zealander to have a solo show at the New Tretiakov Gallery in Russia. Of this experience she wrote, “I came of age as a painter, experiencing strong reaction both for and against”.
Piera describes her work as follows: “There are two poles to my work, which influence one another nevertheless. One is the fascinating world of drawing, a miraculous medium which can say it all, the other is the glorious world of colour and paint. My life aim as an artist is to travel on both these paths, combining and integrating. I am aiming for the thrill of ordered chaos, which can end in harmony.”
“My idea is to abstract the human form in close proximity, so that the bodies are reduced to simple plains, the people depicted become part of a world of colour which has a life of it’s own – ambient, turbulent, vibrant, but which, because of an underlying balance, results, like the people it infiltrates, in a final harmonious whole. It is about tensions and balance. Hopefully, other satirical elements complete the picture.”
We are pleased to invite you view Simon Kerr’s latest exhibition:
‘If You Want Meat Go To The Butcher’
As the former leader of the notorious Hole in The Wall Gang and infamous for escaping custody six times, Simon Kerr is an unlikely candidate for an artist and yet his life experiences have influenced the narrative found in his paintings. “My art is two things – a narrative of my personal journey and the other part of it is my observation of the worldalong that journey.”
Simon didn’t start painting until his last prison sentence, served at Northland Region Corrections Facility from 2011 to 2015 and although his work is reminiscent of artists like Basquiat, his lack of formal training, or even knowledge of such painters, has meant that Simon has developed his own style.
Simon’s journey from a career criminal to an exhibiting artist is an interesting narrative, but as with all our artists, the resume only takes you so far. The work itself is what matters and Simons invigorating work sits well with the gallery collection.
A general sense of situations yet unexplored pervades each painting. Multiple panels featuring disparate images, colours, and stylistic flourishes, Ilya Volykhine’s paintings reverberate with a distinct aura that transcends narrative description. Despite a leitmotif of figurative elements, storylines are intentionally slippery.
“For me surprise is a necessity when making art. I welcome unforeseen accidents that transcend my imagination, and let myself go with the flow. Mistakes are also very welcome. Failure breeds success. With these works, I also started from zero without any preconceived concepts or ideas. In the latter half of making them, something like a theme (fragments) suddenly occurred to me, but that was also completely by accident, and to be honest, it doesn’t have any definitive meaning at all. If someone asked me how I chose exhibition titles, I wouldn’t have an answer. All I could say is, I dunno. In these works (and all the other ones too), I just painted the things I wanted to paint – my everyday feelings and thoughts. The people, places and things, I’ve seen or even imagined. These are the only things I keep in mind when I make my works. “
His works both suggest and withhold a sense of resolution, unearthing a near-universal human tendency to search for and project narratives. The artist’s staged compositions—his “mini stories”—pull viewers into the suggestion of a storyline, only to drive them into the chaos of abstraction. Even as the eye revels in the rich detail of each point and counterpoint, he deftly refocuses attention on the composition as a whole. This dynamic lyricism—created by elements that are always more than the sum of their parts—has long been the hallmark of Volykhine’s singular career as a painter.
“I’m endlessly fascinated with using different techniques to recreate colours. I love been able to squash colour across a surface”. “My work is emotive, it is all I ever want to do.”
Rachael’s tree paintings have taken on a life of their own. Intricate textures of bark created with modelling paste and other ‘secret’ compounds are tactile and 3-dimensional. The colours are the depth and warmth of autumn and the fresh lime green tones of spring. Fascinated by the ever-changing play of filtered light Rachael encourages the viewer to step into the woods, to smell it, to feel it and to be soothed.
John Badcock is a well recognised name in New Zealand Art. He is from an extremely artistic family, and first began painting with his father, Douglas Badcock, in Queenstown over 50 years ago. He has been working as a professional artist for more than 35 years and has had numerous public and dealer gallery exhibitions.
His works are held in major public collections including The Hocken Library, Dunedin, Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington, Aigantighe Art Gallery, Timaru and Andersons Park, Invercargill. He also has work in the Sackman Corporation collection in New York.
John’s artwork is identifiable by his heavily applied and beautifully sculptured use of rich oil paint on board. These rich textural paintings illustrate the skill of John’s ability to form fields of grasses and seeding flowers, stunning portraiture or the bold form of intricate Victorian architecture from paint that is almost “falling off the canvas”.
John has numerous awards to his name from throughout New Zealand and in 2007 he was selected for the Archibald Salon des Refuses exhibition in Sydney, Australia.
Early in 2015 John was included in the top 10 Great Artists from New Zealand list, compiled by theculturetrip.com and joins the other great artists such as Bill Hammond, Jason Greig and Kushana Bush
I am constantly drawn to the landscape which tells the story of places and seasons, and is a connection for us all, wherever in the world we are. These paintings are my response to that connection, creating what is in essence a tribute to the memory of a place. They can be fleeting or more constant, reflecting the changing lines, shapes and colours of the land.
For this exhibition I have painted on Belgian linen which is an exciting departure for me. Painting on linen enables me to draw on the foundations of classical techniques in a contemporary context. In a sense, my paintings carry the weight of that tradition, while capturing my own moment, my own landscape, my own sky.
The linen has a warmth to it, the weave reflecting the light and colours of the flax. Its richness comes through, infusing the pigment and deepening forms. The weight and texture of the linen, its organic roughness, and imperfections, are part of what makes the fabric so beautiful. It’s a bit like the creative process itself; working with what you have to create something new. I’m not so much painting on linen as with it.
“I found I could say things with colour and shape that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for” – Georgia O’Keeffe
As a circus trained acrobat himself, French sculptor Eric Desiles has an intimate knowledge of the human body, form and movement. He was inspired to capture split seconds of motion and emotion, using his experience as a performance artist to create timeless figures in bronze.
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