JOANNA BRAITHWAITE

JOANNA BRAITHWAITE Home Truths

15 Mar - 9 Apr 2014

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

Milford Galleries Dunedin 18 Dowling Street (03) 477 7727 info@milfordhouse.co.nz

1

Marking Time (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1069 x 919 x 22 mm

2

Time Will Tell (2013) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1067 x 919 x 22 mm

3

Go for Gold (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1375 x 1222 x 22 mm

4

Grand Times (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1984 x 1679 x 22 mm

5

Good as Gold (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1066 x 917 x 22 mm

6

Fool’s Gold (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1069 x 918 x 22 mm

7

Colourful Memory (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1071 x 915 x 22 mm

8

Gold Trail (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1068 x 919 x 22 mm

9

Little Nugget #1 (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

10

Little Nugget #2 (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

11

Go for Gold Study (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

12

Little Treasure #1 (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

13

Little Treasure #2 (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

14

Little Treasure #3 (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

15

Local Legend #1 (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

16

Local Legend #2 (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

17

Local Legend #3 (2014) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

18

Local Legend #4 (2014) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

19

Gold Trail Study (2013/14) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

20

Gold Trail Study #2 (2014) oil on canvas, stretcher: 353 x 303 x 22 mm

Every Braithwaite painting is a tantalising mix of fact and fiction delivered in the compositional styles of traditional portraiture. They belie their apparent simplicity by becoming visual riddles in which overlays of social signifiers and cultural dynamics come to establish dream-like psychological narratives.

“Home Truths” uses irony and contradiction, the symbolic and the metaphoric.

Braithwaite pushes imbalance, builds a collective subconscious and celebrates personality foibles. The animals have become performers, displaying human characteristics and behaviours.

Good as Gold (2013/14) and Fool’s Gold (2013/14) have been informed by an early Victorian era photograph taken in Skippers Canyon, Central Otago during the gold rush. The Capuchin monkey wore a cap and had a pipe. Braithwaite uses those props again as personality and character keys. The monkey’s gaze is directly on the viewer and in a typical Braithwaite manner there comes an inversion of hierarchy.

The obsessive search for gold by humans is delivered as paradoxes and questioned by the monkey. All that for this?

Go for Gold (2013/14) pointedly questions our values. The endangered Otago skink shoulders the (impossible) burden of a (seemingly over-sized) gold nugget and is presented as trapped in the growing darkness of its own landscape.

Sharp contrast and humour underpin most of Braithwaite’s painting practice, too.

Time Will Tell (2013) is an incisive joke about the passing of time, personality and character, social position and the inevitable gap between perception and deception. Marking Time (2013/14) attaches the legend of the Mackenzie country dog by wrapping it in a shawl of McKenzie tartan. Gold Trail (2013/14) uses the beckoning gold-tipped walking stick held in the dog’s mouth as an invitation to walk down the remembered paths and tracks back to gold itself.

Colourful Memory (2013/14) is an assured delightful visual art-joke. It is also an unusual work in Braithwaite’s career in having explicit biographical content and the impulse of childhood memory - of the family goat and Dutch Still Lifes on place mats.

By any criteria applied Grand Times (2013/14) is a major work and a tour de force. A Victorian lounge scene is set. One skink stands on a mantle clock, the other sits on a royal blue upholstered chair. The accessories add identity, becoming markers of class and status. Each holds a gold nugget insouciantly, tails nonchalantly draped, while surveying their triumphant circumstance with trapped self-consciousness.

EXHIBITION PRICELIST 1

Marking Time (2013/14)

9,500

2

Time Will Tell (2013)

9,500

3

Go for Gold (2013/14)

14,500

4

Grand Times (2013/14)

27,500

5

Good as Gold (2013/14)

9,500

6

Fool's Gold (2013/14)

9,500

7

Colourful Memory (2013/14)

9,500

8

Gold Trail (2013/14)

9,500

9

Little Nugget #1 (2013/14)

1,750

10

Little Nugget #2 (2013/14)

1,750

11

Go for Gold Study (2013/14)

1,750

12

Little Treasure #1 (2013/14)

1,750

13

Little Treasure #2 (2013/14)

1,750

14

Little Treasure #3 (2013/14)

1,750

15

Local Legend #1 (2013/14)

1,750

16

Local Legend #2 (2013/14)

1,750

17

Local Legend #3 (2014)

1,750

18

Local Legend #4 (2014)

1,750

19

Gold Trail Study (2013/14)

1,750

20

Gold Trail Study #2 (2014)

1,750

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

JOANNA BRAITHWAITE b. 1962, lives Sydney

Joanna Braithwaite: Marking Time (2013/14)

Joanna Braithwaite juxtaposes objects, animals, humans and insects onto lavish painterly surfaces in unexpected and imaginative ways. She characteristically works in series and her immediate environment often prompts her subject matter. “Braithwaite’s work always contains figurative and realist elements but seldom without a twist which wrenches the work away from simple realism towards the surreal.” (1) "Notions of progress and evolution, of sexual and natural selection, are seldom far from the surface of Braithwaite's paintings, whether they reference science lab or dog park." (2) “Joanna Braithwaite’s fascination with the inversion of hierarchies and power structures and her preoccupation with testing the limits of what is considered human, raises wider issues of identity and authority. Her paintings prompt physical responses by means of psychological narratives, while projecting the spectator into realms where they must question the nature of their existence and their relationship with those around them. By these means her work also serves to make visible the processes by which power structures and hierarchies operate in contemporary society.” (3) She has long been concerned with the interrelationship between humans and animals. Of her ‘Hover’ series she states “I decided to push this idea of an imbalance between man and beast further by considering the attributes of each. What if the balance was altered, and what if one species acquired some attribute of the other? I chose to paint a series of works where the human form was completely covered in creatures that could fly.” (4) “The placement of humans and creatures in mid-air, ascending, floating, or falling, deliberately deprives the viewer of reference points.” (5) The 2003 ‘Wild Things’ and 2006 ‘All Sorts’ and ‘Avian Suite’ works continue the use of both the symbolic and metaphoric and Braithwaite adds explicit anthropomorphic characteristics to her creatures and animals.

These animals have become performers – “a trapped consciousness” is implied. (6) Braithwaite was born in Halifax, England in 1962 and arrived in New Zealand in 1965. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury in 1985 and completed a MFA at College of Fine Arts, Sydney in 2000. She was awarded the Olivia Spencer Bower Foundation Art Award in 1990, merit prizes in the Visa Gold Art Awards (1997 & 1998), has been a finalist in the Australian Archibald and Sulman Art Awards in 2013, 2008 and in 2006 was runner-up in the Australian Portia Geach Art Award. Since 1999 she has lived in Sydney and has held many solo exhibitions in New Zealand and Australia. In 2005, her work was the subject of a major survey exhibition under the curation of Justin Paton (Dunedin Public Art Gallery) and Felicity Milburn (Christchurch Art Gallery). In 2011 Jenny Bornholdt and Gregory O'Brien curated a survey exhibition Significant Others and Braithwaite has work in many private and public collections in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Peter Simpson, ‘Pleasure Seeking and Surrealism’, Sunday Star Times, 19 August, 2001.

Gregory O’Brien, 'Upwards and Onwards', Art New Zealand, Autumn, 2010 Lisa Beaven, ‘Taking Flight: The Airborne and Hybrid Images of Joanna Braithwaite’ Art New Zealand 102, Spring 2002.

Joanna Braithwaite quoted in Beaven, ibid Beaven, ibid Bridie Lonie, ‘The island of Dr Braithwaite’, NZ Listener, 23 April, 2005.

Joanna Braithwaite 2014 CV P a g e |1

Milford

GalleriesDunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

JOANNA BRAITHWAITE b. 1962, lives Sydney EDUCATION 1984 1999-2000

BFA, University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, New Zealand MFA at College of Fine Arts, Sydney

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 2013 2012 2011

2010 2009 2008 2007

2006 2005 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001

2000 1999 1998 1997 1996

1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1986 1984

Home Truths, Milford Galleries Dunedin Finders Keepers, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia Goes Without Saying, milford galleries Queenstown Old Flames, Bowen Galleries, Wellington Pecking Order, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia Significant Others, New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington; Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui Hen’s Teeth, Milford Galleries Dunedin Walk My Way, Bowen Galleries, Wellington Born To Be Free, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch About Time, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia Sealegs, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Animalia, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia Animalia, La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo, Australia Paintings 1995 – 2006, milford galleries auckland All Sorts, milford galleries auckland Selected Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin Relative Moments, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Wonderland, touring exhibition; Dunedin Public Art Gallery; Christchurch Art Gallery Little Wonder, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Wild Things, milford galleries auckland Relative Moments, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia Paintings 2002, Bowen Galleries, Wellington Hover, milford galleries auckland Menagerie Series, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Spaces, milford galleries auckland Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia Paintings, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Phenomena, Milford Galleries Dunedin Vicarious Relations, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia Nature of Beings, Brooker Gallery, Wellington Ways of Being, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Darren Knight DKW, Melbourne, Australia Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland Brooker Gallery, Wellington Off Shore, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Darren Knight DKW, Melbourne, Australia Brooker Gallery, Wellington New Paintings, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland Paintings, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Paintings, Brooker Gallery, Wellington Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland Paintings and Drawings, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Paintings, Brooker Gallery, Wellington Beasts and Birds, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Twelve Paintings, Six Drawings and Five Collages, C.S.A. Gallery Christchurch

Joanna Braithwaite 2014 CV P a g e |2

Milford

GalleriesDunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2013

2012

2011

2009 2008

2007 2006

2005

2004 2003-04 2003

2002 2001 2000

1999 1998

1997

1996 1994

1993 1992

1991

Spring Catalogue, milford galleries queenstown Auckland Art Fair, Milford Galleries Dunedin Trigger, Bowen Galleries, Wellington Laugh out Loud, Latrobe Regional Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia The Surreal, Milford Galleries Dunedin Gallipoli Art Prize, Gallipoli Club, Sydney, Australia Voice of Art 3: For the Love of Animals, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, Australia PARALLEL, Milford Galleries Dunedin Sydney’s Contested Landscapes, Customs House Square, Sydney, Australia Australia Day Exhibition, Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney, Australia Portia Geach Memorial Award, S.H. Irvin Gallery, Sydney, Australia Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Darren Knight Gallery at Auckland Art Fair, Auckland, New Zealand Wish you were here, Tweed River Art Gallery, New South Wales, Australia The Year of the bird, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, New South Wales, Australia Who let the dogs out - the dog in contemporary Australian art, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery and Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, New South Wales, Australia Devils in Paradise, Bett Galley, Hobart, Australia Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Braithwaite, Ellis and Harris, milford galleries auckland Object, Milford Galleries Dunedin Portia Geach Memorial Award, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, Australia Postcards from the Desert – Six artists on the Larapinta Trail, Damian Minton Gallery, Sydney, Australia Portia Geach Memorial Award, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, Australia Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Chosen, Milford Galleries Dunedin The Menagerie: Animals in Art, Northart Community Arts Centre, Northcote, Auckland Spiders & Flies, newcontempories, Sydney, Australia Home Sweet Home: Works from the Peter Fay Collection, National Gallery of Australia Norsewear Art Awards, Guest Artist, Hastings Overview: Notions of the Figurative, Milford Galleries Dunedin The Cloak - milford galleries auckland Leaping Boundaries, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia PCL Exhibitionists, Sydney, Australia Canterbury Painting in the 1990’s, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch Paintings, Bowen Galleries, Wellington Paintings, Milford Galleries, Dunedin Selected Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin Group Show, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Bulge, Brian Queenin Gallery, Wellington Visa Gold Art Award, touring exhibition, New Zealand The Subject of Object, Milford Galleries Dunedin Christmas Show, Gow Langsford, Auckland Christmas Show, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Group Exhibition, Milford Galleries Dunedin Artists Eye IV, curated by Noel McKenna, Rex Irwin Art Dealer, Sydney, Australia Ronnie, Barney, Shane, Jo and Mike, Darren Knight DKW, Melbourne, Australia Small Works, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch White Camelias, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch Triplicate, Brooker Gallery, Wellington Prospect Canterbury, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch Bermondsey Artist Summer Exhibition, London, England Vanities, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch Festival Exhibition, Brooker Gallery, Wellington

Joanna Braithwaite 2014 CV P a g e |3

Milford

GalleriesDunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

1989 1988

1987 1986 1985

Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Here and Now – twelve Young Canterbury Artists, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch The Painted Zoo, Shed 11, Wellington Thirty Canterbury Artists, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch Architecture Show, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Aigantighe Art Gallery, Timaru Women’s Exhibition, CSA Gallery, Christchurch Christmas Show, CSA Gallery, Christchurch Christmas Show, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch

AWARDS 2013 2011 2008 2006 2004 2001 1999 1998 1997 1991 1990 1987 1985 1983 1983

Finalist, Sir John Sulman Prize, Australia Finalist, Sir John Sulman Prize, Australia Finalist, Archibald Prize, Australia Runner-up, Portia Geach Art Award,Australia Finalist, Sir John Sulman Prize, Australia Finalist, Sir John Sulman Prize, Australia Roche Prize, PCL Exhibitions, Sydney Australia Art Excellence Award, Christchurch Community Trust, New Zealand Merit, Visa Art Award, New Zealand Merit, Visa Art Award, New Zealand Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award, New Zealand Olivia Spencer Bower Foundation Art Award, New Zealand Major Project Grant, QE II Arts Council, New Zealand New Artists Promotion Grant, QE II Arts Council, New Zealand Ethel Rose Overton Scholarship, University of Canterbury, New Zealand Sawtell Turner Painting Prize, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

SELECTED COLLECTIONS Aigantighe Art Gallery, Timaru Christchurch Art Gallery, Te Puna O Waiwhetu Fletcher Challenge Collection, Auckland Lincoln University, Canterbury College House Collection, Christchurch James Wallace Collection, Auckland University of Canterbury Library Collection, Christchurch

BIBLIOGRAPHY Agnew, Margaret, Brush with Oz, The Press, May 29, 2002 Amery, Mark, Disturbing calendar images, The Evening Post, 4 September 1997 Award puts gloss on artist’s career, Christchurch Star, 20 October 1989 Awards on show, The Press, 28 August 1998 Banbury, Grant, Joanna Braithwaite: interview with Grant Banbury, Takahe 33, Christchurch, Aug 1998 Barr, G, Intelligent offerings at art gallery, Christchurch Star, 27 July 2005 Barry, Clare, The Press, 31 October 1990 Beaven, Lisa, Taking Flight: The Airborne and Hybrid Images of Joanna Braithwaite, Art New Zealand, Issue Number 102, Spring 2002 Blundell, S. Arts Section front page, The Press, 20 July 2005.

Brown, Warwick, 100 New Zealand Paintings, Godwit Publishing Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand, 1995 Burgess, Malcolm, Running Wild Across Gene Pools, New Zealand Herald, 12 November 2003 Dunbar, Anna, Art that soars, The Press, 8 December 1999 Frazer, Neil, An Uncomfortable Empathy, Takahe 33, Christchurch, New Zealand, August 1998 Fortescue, E. Joanna Braithwaite, Artist Profile, Issue 9. 2009 Hart, Deborah Home Sweet Home: an artist-collector’s passion, Home Sweet Home: Works from the Peter Fay collection, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia Hawley, J. Welcome to my world, Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend p. 30

Joanna Braithwaite 2014 CV P a g e |4

Milford

GalleriesDunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

Hay, Jennifer, The Collections: Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Christchurch, 2003 Hurrell, John Braithwaite paintings, The Press, 12 March 1996 Jackson, Penelope and Strongman, Lara, White Camellias: a century of Women’s Art Making, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, 1993 Levine, Brett, (Re)Visioning the Real, Lopdell House Gallery, Auckland 1998 Lonie, B. The island of Dr Braithwaite, New Zealand Listener, 23-29 April, 2005 Lorimer, Wayne Beyond Realism, The Press, 29 July 1998 Low, Lenny Ann, Wonderworld, Sydney Morning Herald, 10-11 May 2003 Critic's Picks, Sydney Morning Herald, 9-15 May, 2003 Lowe, Robert, What Kiwi Artists Saw in Australia, The Daily News, 18 June 2001 Milburn, F. and Pepperle, S. Wonderland – The beastly world of Joanna Braithwaite, Bulletin, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Runa O Waiwhetu, Winter June-August 2005 McDonald, J. Daydreams who bite back, The Sydney Morning Herald, 3-4 December 2005 McDonald, J. Reflections of us, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 22-23, 2005 McHugh, Michael, Opposites Attract, FQ Entertaining, Winter 1998 McNamara, T.J. Ritchie Enlivens Week of Basics, New Zealand Herald, 17 August 1989 Curious Imagery Creates Odd Puzzles, The Press, 12 November 2003 Moore, C. Visual Arts, The Press, 23 July 2005 O’Brien, G. Joanna Braithwaite’s “Wonderland”, Australian Art Review, September 2005.

O’Brien, G “Upwards and Onwards”, Art New Zealand, Autumn 2010, #133, p 24 – 27 Paton, Justin, Joanna Braithwaite, The Press, 18 November 1992 Paton, Justin, Magic realism at sea, The Press, 7 June 1995 Pauli, Dorothee, Bizarre whimsies, The Press, 12 September 2001 Rewi, Adrienne ‘Painter’s Ways of Being’, The Press, 9 July 1997 Simpson, Peter, Pleasure seeking and surrealism, Sunday Star-Times, 26 August 2001 Slade, Colin, Art for more than just art’s sake, The Press, 5 May 1997 3rd Major Survey: Modern Art in New Zealand, Milford Galleries, Dunedin, 1997 Taylor, Rob, Smith’s Half-painting in Fresco Style, The Dominion, 5 December 1990 Timms, P. Artnotes, Art Monthly Australia, September 2007 #203 p.50 Ussher, Robyn, Free and flighty, The Press, 8 December 1999 Commanding Impasto Links Humans, Animals, The Press, 9 July 1997 Unger, Pat, Paintings, Drawings, The Press, 26 October 1988 Group Show, The Press Exhibitions: Christchurch, Art New Zealand 59, Winter 1991 Exhibitions: Christchurch, Art New Zealand 65, Summer 1992 Were, Virginia, A Second Noah’s Ark, Art New Zealand, Summer 2004 Weston, Tom, Passion and Responsibility: The Paintings of Joanna Braithwaite, Art New Zealand 56, 1989 The Ambiguous Companion, Hazard Press, 1996 (with illustrations by Joanna Braithwaite) Naming the Mind Like Trees, (paintings by Joanna Braithwaite), Steele Roberts Ltd. Wellington, NZ 2004 Wood, Andrew Paul, Unnatural history, New Zealand Listener, 16-22 October 2004, pp.42-3

Joanna Braithwaite: Silent Partner (2013)

Joanna Braithwaite 2014 CV P a g e |5

Milford

GalleriesDunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz