NIGEL BROWN

NIGEL BROWN INVENTED LIVES 9 March - 3 April 2013

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

milford galleries queenstown

9A Earl Street (03) 442 6896 qtown@milfordgalleries.co.nz

1

Moana Saline Attenborough (2012) oil & acrylic on canvas, frame: 841 x 643 x 58 mm

2

Andrew Four by Two Riverton (2012) oil & acrylic on linen, frame: 942 x 645 x 58 mm

3

Veronica Jess Orepuke (2012) oil & acrylic on canvas, frame: 943 x 645 x 58 mm

4

George Louie Ponga (2012) oil & acrylic on canvas, frame: 843 x 645 x 58 mm

5

Vita Titikaveka Brickell (2012) oil & acrylic on linen, frame: 1395 x 848 x 58 mm

6

Susan Dreaming Tuatapere (2012) oil & acrylic on linen, frame: 1397 x 848 x 58 mm

7

Kiti Paua at Frame Point (2012) oil on linen, frame: 1398 x 848 x 58 mm

8

Olive Kyeburn Otautau (2012) oil & acrylic on linen, frame: 1397 x 849 x 58 mm

9

Jean Ariana Homelight Fraser (2012) oil & acrylic on aluminium, frame: 841 x 642 x 58 mm

10

Jean Francis Pahia (2012) oil & acrylic on aluminium, frame: 842 x 641 x 58 mm

11

Thelma Aroha Hokianga (2012) oil & acrylic on aluminium, frame: 842 x 641 x 58 mm

12

Yeah NZ (2012) acrylic on paper, frame: 1016 x 759 x 60 mm, image: 430 x 660 mm

13

A Woman for Organic Values (2012) pen & acrylic on paper, frame: 818 x 595 x 35 mm, image: 530 x 320 mm

14

Dear Paul Gauguin You Were Right (2012) pencil on paper, frame: 651 x 511 x 35 mm, image: 350 x 235 mm

15

Variation on Picasso’s Dora Maar 1937 (2012) pencil on paper, frame: 827 x 598 x 35 mm, image: 515 x 320 mm

For his new suite of works, Invented Lives, Nigel Brown has taken as a starting point Picasso’s 1937 painting Portrait of Dora Maar. As the title of the exhibition suggests, Brown’s portraits are not of family, friends, or acquaintances; they depict individuals the artist has created from an amalgam of his own experiences, diverse visual styles, and re-figured memories. Portraiture seeks to define the ‘essence’ of the sitter that lies beneath their physical surface. With these paintings Brown turns this on its head: the essence of the person is already formed in Brown’s imagination and he must depict its physical manifestation.

Using the framework of Picasso’s Dora Maar as a template, with each character similar in pose and attitude, Brown uses their accoutrements, surroundings and names to ‘embody’ their personalities. Kiti Paua at Frame Point sports a pounamu earring and a dress covered in familiar Brown motifs of ponga ferns, cascades, kiwis and cabbage trees; Andrew Four By Two Riverton sees his quintessential ‘black singlet man’ with hammer in hand and beer crate on display. Names come from “family, pets, Southland place names, friends” (1) and Brown is aware that while each name has a specific personal resonance to him, each viewer will bring their own backstory when considering the portrait titles.

Brown’s approach to composition, use of colour and brushwork in this series of paintings also exhibit a diversity of sources. Of immediate note is Brown’s homage to Picasso and Cubism in his figures: faces encompass multiple views, and organic forms are simplified to basic shapes. Within this framework, the artist continues his exploration of Expressionist use of colour. The vivid orange hue of Vita Titikaveka Brickell is the most striking example of this. Accompanied by strong black outlines, sculpted contours and deliberate shading, Vita’s two-tone visage confronts the viewer. Susan Dreaming Tuatapere does the same; Brown’s dotted stippling is inspired by the textured “dabbing” he has seen in the works of desert artists (2), and is combined with the intense colouring of early 20th century painters such as Ernst Kirchner and Emil Nolde.

Drawing these threads together is the strongly identifiable hand of the artist and the recurrence of stylistic devices seen again and again throughout his practice. Brown’s gold backdrops suggest a spirituality to be found in the land and the extraordinary glimpsed in the prosaic; here they hover, halo-like, behind his subjects. The curtains Browns says “date back to my Titirangi period” (3) and the sweep of the Southlandinspired beach seen through the window create frames within the frame of the canvas, keeping in check the larger-than-life colours and energetic brushwork.

Rather than the text seen in other suites of work, it is life’s trappings that define (confine?) these invented people.

1. Artist’s statement, February 2013 2. Ibid 3. Ibid

EXHIBITION PRICELIST 1

Moana Saline Attenborough (2012)

9,500

2

Andrew Four by Two Riverton (2012)

9,500

3

Veronica Jess Orepuke (2012)

9,500

4

George Louie Ponga (2012)

9,500

5

Vita Titikaveka Brickell (2012)

17,500

6

Susan Dreaming Tuatapere (2012)

17,500

7

Kiti Paua at Frame Point (2012)

17,500

8

Olive Kyeburn Otautau (2012)

17,500

9

Jean Ariana Homelight Fraser (2012)

9,500

10

Jean Francis Pahia (2012)

9,500

11

Thelma Aroha Hokianga (2012)

9,500

12

Yeah NZ (2012)

4,750

13

A Woman for Organic Values (2012)

3,750

14

Dear Paul Gauguin You Were Right (2012)

3,250

15

Variation on Picasso's Dora Maar 1937 (2012)

3,500

All prices are NZD and include GST; Prices are current at the time of the exhibition

NIGEL BROWN b. 1949, lives Southland

Life’s Not Fair (2007/08)

Nigel Brown has established a reputation as one the most important figurative artists working in New Zealand and is acknowledged as New Zealand’s leading narrative artist. His distinctive works are a blend of symbolic and expressionistic approaches with a deep social concern.

Brown actively uses story telling precepts within the ‘confines’ of the image. He directly and selectively employs history, literature, politics, etc. as devices and in so doing examines the varied plights of the individual and environment with an emotional, intuitive sympathy which is accurate, incisive and clothed in a vernacular of the human condition.

His work expresses fundamental spiritual and humanistic concerns common to mankind. These are infused with the particularity of cultural location and reference, the specific of place and event, the dynamism of individual character and personality with the narrative (artist as author) point of view.

A potent myth-maker, Brown articulates the conscience of a country reinterpreting and revisiting its past. He translates this and expresses its (discordant) present with the expectation of better things to come.

Born in Invercargill, New Zealand in 1949, Nigel Brown (ONZM) gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Arts, University of Auckland in 1971 and began his full time artist career in 1972. Since then he has exhibited extensively in public and private galleries throughout New Zealand and has had several touring exhibitions including in 2000-2001 ‘Points Along the Way’ (a survey). After many years living in suburban Auckland, he moved to a coastal property in rural Southland in 2000. He has received numerous awards, commissions and residencies and is represented in most New Zealand public collections and many private collections. Brown was awarded the Order of NZ Merit for Services to painting and printmaking in 2004 and in 2005 was awarded a three week residency in Russia hosted by NZ’s ambassador in Moscow, Stuart Prior.

In addition to his painting, Brown is also a printmaker and he has undertaken two significant stained glass window designs – St Mary’s Catholic Church, Auckland (1991) and Auckland Cathedral, Parnell (1998). In 2009 Brown completed ‘Seven Last Words’ a suite of lithographs commissioned by Chamber Music NZ in association with String Quartet in honour of the 200th anniversary of Haydn's death.

Nigel Brown 2013 CV P a g e |1

milford galleries queenstown

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

NIGEL BROWN b. 1949, lives Southland EDUCATION 1968-71

Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland (BFA) (Tutors include McCahon and Ellis)

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2013 2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007 2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999 1998

Invented Lives, milford galleries queenstown Black Paper Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin Short Lives of Birds, Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi - Whakatāne Library & Exhibition Centre, Whakatāne Joe Taihape, whitespace, Auckland Dusky Doubtful, milford galleries queenstown Travel to Travel, Rotorua Museum Travel to Travel, Southland Museum, Invercargill; Lopdell House, Auckland Mitre, Milford Galleries Dunedin Short Lives of Birds, whitespace, Wellington Short Lives of Birds, whitespace, Auckland New Lemon Tree, Williams Gallery, Petone The Written Word: Works from the Artist, Wallace and Museum Collections, Tairawhiti Museum and Art Gallery, Gisborne Selected Works, milford galleries queenstown All Our Days, Milford Galleries Dunedin The Haydn Lithos, Touring Papergraphica Exhibition, Launch Futuna Chapel, Karori, Wellington Art of Reading, Williams Gallery, Petone Conversations, milford galleries queenstown Lamp, Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland Antarctic Visions, Williams Gallery, Petone Gold Miner, Milford Galleries Dunedin Will To Meaning, Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland Worded Image, Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland Southern Odyssey Project Commission: Painting for Railway, Mossburn Hotel Iconic Way, milford galleries queenstown Personage, Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore Yeah, Human, Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland Allegories, Tinakori Gallery, Wellington A Russian Journey, Lithographs, Muka, Auckland Russian Works, New Zealand Embassy, Moscow, Russia I Am IV, CoCA, Christchurch Human Condition, Tinakori Galley, Wellington Dance of the Origin, Milford Galleries Dunedin Points Along The Way, Aigantighe Art Gallery, Timaru I Am III, Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland Deco Echo, Statements Gallery, Napier Points Along the Way, Ashburton Art Gallery; Forester Gallery, Oamaru I Am II, Tinakori Galley, Wellington This Human Place, Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland Points Along the Way, Pataka Porirua Museum of Arts and Culture; Fisher Gallery, Auckland; Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui I Am, Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland Points Along The Way, touring show by Milford Galleries Dunedin; Suter Gallery Nelson Hard Pressed, Portfolio Gallery, Auckland Road Works, Statements Gallery, Napier Encounter and Discovery: Pacifica, Rotorua Museum of Art and History Antarctica, touring show Government House, Wellington & Auckland, Southland Museum and Art Gallery, Canterbury Museum

Nigel Brown 2013 CV P a g e |2

milford galleries queenstown

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

1996 1993

1988

Pacifica V Southland, Museum and Art Gallery, Invercargill Living Here Aotearoa, Aigantighe Art Gallery, Timaru; Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch Living Here Aotearoa, A Survey, Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North 1984 and After, Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2013 2012 2011 2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Digital installation of ‘On This Beautiful Morning (2004),Peacock Gallop ,Sumner ,Christchurch ‘Sum of the Parts’, Museum of the Vernacular, The Depot, Devonport, Auckland Significant Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin Large Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin Delights, Medallion Artists New Zealand, Remuera Gallery, Auckland My City, Whitespace, Auckland 58th Peace Art Exhibition, Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse #1 (Yokohama New Port), Japan Medallion Show, Remuera Gallery, Auckland Masterworks, milford galleries queenstown 57th Peace Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, Ueno, Japan Garden of Delights, New Zealand Medallion Group, Auckland Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre Artists to Save Our Water, Chamber Gallery, Rangiora Taste, Auckland Art Gallery The Captain, Tauranga Art Gallery Nine Artists in Fiordland, St Paul’ Cathedral (Caselburg Trust) Dunedin Eden Arts Sketchbook Project: For Artists in Eden Day Select, Old School Puke Ariki, New Plymouth 56th Peace Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, Veno Japan Sinfonia Antarctica, The New Dowse, Lower Hutt Te Kauri, Zealandia, Warkworth (2008-2009) Guest Artist (With B. Brickell) NZ Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington Artists to Save our Water, NG Gallery, Christchurch Showcasing Southland Artists, Southland Museum and Art Gallery Adornment, Medallion Group, Waiheke 55th Peace Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, Veno Japan Art for Conversation, Michael Fowler Centre / Government House, Wellington The Printmakers, Catchment Gallery, Nelson The Shock of the New, CoCA, Christchurch Ten Renowned Artists, Remuera Gallery, Auckland Driving Creek collaborative ceramic sculpture with Barry Brickell The VAANA Fragments, Outreach, Auckland VAANA Mural, Digitised Version, Karangahape Road, Auckland Editions, Catchment Gallery, Nelson Masterstrokes, Gallery 33, Wanaka Inview: Works from VVA Art Collection, Curated by Adam Art Gallery, Wellington Everyday Moments, (with Cathy Helps), CoCA, Christchurch The Hocken Collections in Auckland, Portraits of Artists, University of Otago House A Celebration of the Life of Lyndsay Crooks, Dunedin Community Gallery In From the Cold, Christchurch Public Art Gallery 45˚ Below, An Antarctic Summer, Forrester Gallery, Oamaru 53rd Peace Art Exhibition, Ueno, Tokyo, Japan Medallion Group Exhibition, Catchment Gallery, Nelson McCahon’s Legacy, Ferner Gallery, Wellington Transit of Venus, milford galleries queenstown Three Notable Printmakers, Williams Gallery, Petone A Comparison of Scale, The New Zealand Medallion Group, Percy Thomson Gallery, Stratford Pacific Rim, Contemporary New Zealand Medallic Sculpture, Medalia, Rack and Hamper Gallery, New York Fidem XXIX 2004, Seixal, Portugal 52 Anniversary Peace Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Uneo, Japan

Nigel Brown 2013 CV P a g e |3

milford galleries queenstown

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

2003

2002

2001

2000

1996 1994 1987 1985

The Sublime Metaphor, NZ House, Haymarket, London; City University of New York (CVNY) Oxford University Museum; Leedy-Volkous Art Centre Gallery, Kansas City Ranges of Inspiration, Corban Estate Arts Centre, Waitakere City Art in the Woolshed, Tawharanui 51st Anniversary Peace Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Ueno, Japan Connectedness, Hawkes Bay Museum Barking Mad, The Suter, Nelson On Location, Te Papa Touring Exhibition, Included Southland Museum The Wind in the Fences, Dunedin Public Art Gallery Overview, AS IS, Landscape and Metaphor, Milford Galleries Dunedin Artists Against Aqua, Forrester Gallery, Oamaru Annual Spring Exhibition, Anderson House, Invercargill Pacific Rim, Simons Gallery, London, England Southern Exposure, Artists Residence, Cosy Nook 50th Anniversary Peace Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, Uneo, Japan Pacific Rim, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Spiritual Art, Auckland Cranleigh Barton Drawing Awards, McDougall Gallery, Christchurch (Finalist 2001) Pacific Rim, Cliff McPherson Gallery, Christchurch Millennium Medallions, Auckland Museum 49th Anniversary Peace Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Ueno, Japan Sheep, CoCA, Christchurch The Artists Chair, milford galleries auckland Millennium Medallions, Wellington City Art Gallery Annual Spring Exhibition, Anderson House, Invercargill Text and Image, Lopdell House, Auckland XXVII Fidem 2000 Internationalle Medaillenkunst, Berlin Weimar 48th Anniversary Peace Art Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Ueno, Japan Murals for Auckland Town Hall Restoration Project and Green Peace.

Visiting Artist, Hawkes Bay Polytechnic 1987 Print Series, City Gallery, Wellington Living in the Bomb Age, Dunedin Public Art Gallery

AWARDS & COMMISSIONS 2011 2010 2009

2007 2006 2005 2004 1998

1995 1993 1991 1986 1981 1978

Black arches series for Dudley Benson’s album ‘Live Series: Volume One’ Backdrop for Dudley Benson’s ‘Forest’ tour “The Haydn Lithos”, Printed Papergraphica, Christchurch. Commissioned by Chamber Music NZ in association with NZ String Quartet (performance) and Sara Brodie (video included in the performance). Performance touring New Zealand, 2009 Cover for Courses and Careers, Cervin Publishing Work for Railway Hotel, Mossburn, Southern Odyssey Trail Awarded a three week residency in Russia hosted by NZ’s ambassador in Moscow, Stuart Prior, and partially funded by private contributors in NZ ONZM for services to Painting and Print Making Inaugural member Artists to Antarctica Stained glass window commission Auckland Anglican Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, Auckland Southern Odyssey Project Commission: Painting for Railway, Mossburn Hotel Finalist Visa Gold Artist in Residence, Wanganui Regional Polytechnic Stained glass window commission St Mary’s Catholic Church, Auckland Awarded QEII Arts Council Grant Awarded QEII Arts Council Grant for travel to USA, UK & Europe Awarded QEII Arts Council Grant

COLLECTIONS Hocken Library Dunedin Alexander Turnbull Library

Nigel Brown 2013 CV P a g e |4

Auckland Art Gallery Sarjeant Gallery

milford galleries queenstown

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

Robert McDougall Art gallery Te Papa Tongarewa Manawatu Art gallery Dowse Art Museum Waikato Museum of Art & History Lincoln College University of Auckland University of Otago Chartwell Trust Collection Aigantighe Art gallery Creative NZ University of Canterbury Porirua Court Massey University University of Waikato Gisborne Museum & Arts Centre The Rutherford Collection Anderson Park Art Gallery Christchurch City Council Ministry Of External Relations and Trade The Suter Hawkes Bay Polytechnic

ANZ Bank BNZ Fletcher Challenge Bank of NZ Bromhead Design Centra Hotel Russell McVeagh Simpson Grierson Eastern Southland Gallery Canterbury Museum Fletcher Challenge Petroleum Natural Gas Corporation PricewaterhouseCoopers Westpac Trust Buddle Findlay NZ Insurance Tower Corporation AMP Millennium Hotels Tauranga Art Gallery New Zealand Portrait Gallery

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 2012

2011 2010

2009

2008

2007

2004 1991

‘Cultural Icons’, Jam Radio, The Depot, Devonport, Auckland. Richard Wolfe interviews Artist Wolfe, Richard, ‘Bringing it all Back Home; Nigel Brown’s Quest for Identity’, Art New Zealand, Spring 2012, Number 143, p54-57, 79-80 Nigel Brown: Travel To Travel, (catalogue) Southland Museum and Art Gallery; Invercargill, 2011 Wolfe, Richard and Stephen Robinson, Artists At Work, Penguin Books, London, England Ed. Paul Millar, James K Baxter, Selected Poems, Fyfield Books, Carcanet Press Ltd Manchester and Auckland University Press, Auckland (work on the cover) Carey, Peta, The Waterfall, Watershed Films for TVNZ ‘Cultural Icons’, Jam Radio, The Depot, Devonport, Auckland. Denys Trussell interviews Artist Wolfe, Richard and Stephen Robinson, Artists @ Work, Penguin ‘North South’, Handwritten/illustrated by Artist. Glenn Colquhoun poem. Steele Roberts. CNZ Funded ‘The Christian Symbolism of Nigel Brown’, Alastair Lane, Stimulus, Vol 17, Issue 1, February 2009 The Brown Years, exhibition catalogue, Tauranga Art Gallery. (essay by Penny Jackson) Gifford, Adam, ‘Shadows of McCahon and More’, Herald, October 11, 2008 Orton, Mark, Nine Artists in Fiordland, A DVD of Break Sea Girl Trip Kim Hill Interview, Radio NZ, 19 April 2008 The Real Art Show (Promotional pack for touring show) ‘Talk Talk’, Finlay McDonald, Free Air, Recorded June 2008 Johnstone, Christopher, The Painted Garden in NZ Art, Random House NZ, 2008 Wolfe, Richard, NZ Portraits, , Penguin, 2008 Trussell, Dennis, The Expressive Forest, Brick Row Publishing, Auckland, 2008 K.M., Bravado (Cover), Issue 14, 2008, (Included Katherine Mansfield Conference Paper by P. Jackson, London) ‘Te Ara’, the Encyclopaedia of NZ, Online, Ministry of Culture and Heritage Fallow, Michael, ‘Vulnerable Stuff’, Southland Times, 2007 Eyley, C.P., No Nukes is Good Nukes, CD, 2007 Clairmont, Sunday Programme, 4/11/2007, TV1 Footage and interview Will To Meaning, Catalogue 2007, W.H. Gallery, Auckland. (Note by B. Brickell) Dance of the Origin, DVD material (unedited) of Milford Galleries Dunedin exhibition, 2004, (TV1 coverage, rehearsal, paintings) O’Brien, Gregory, Nigel Brown, Random Century

Nigel Brown 2013 CV P a g e |5

milford galleries queenstown

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz