SIGNIFICANT WORKS 2014

SIGNIFICANT WORKS 5 - 30 July 2014

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

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

CONTENTS 1

Dick Frizzell

26

Terry Stringer

2

Neil Dawson

27

Karl Maughan

3

Karl Maughan

28

Christine Webster

4

Brent Wong

29

Robert Ellis

5

Robert Ellis

30

Michael Hight

6

Ann Robinson

31

Graham Bennett

7

Michael Hight

32

Ross Ritchie

8

Paul Dibble

33

Shigeyuki Kihara

9

William Sutton

34

Ian Scott

10

Shigeyuki Kihara

35

Darryn George

11

Pat Hanly

36

Stanley Palmer

12

Joanna Braithwaite

37

Reuben Paterson

13

Reuben Paterson

38

Paul Dibble

14

Toss Woollaston

39

Mervyn Williams

15

Mervyn Williams

40

Dick Frizzell

16

Christine Webster

41

Nigel Brown

17

Jenna Packer

42

Neil Dawson

18

W D Hammond

43

J S Parker

19

Nigel Brown

44

Ann Robinson

20

Mike Petre

45

Ian Scott

21

Philip Clairmont

46

Christine Webster

22

Neil Dawson

47

Wendy Fairclough

23

Neil Frazer

48

Joanna Braithwaite

24

Andy Leleisi’uao

49

Ann Robinson

25

Brent Wong

PRICELIST

DICK FRIZZELL 1

Le Grande Tiki (2013) oil on canvas stretcher: 1752 x 1300 x 35 mm signed, dated “4/12/13” & titled bottom right

The genesis of this major painting goes back twenty five years to Paris in 1988 and Dick Frizzell’s encounter with Picasso’s Grand Nature Morte au Gueridon (Large Still Life on a Pedestal Table) at the Picasso Museum, a painting he has since “been dreaming about for years.” (1) It also directly acknowledges his legendary Tiki Series and 1990 exhibition which are widely regarded as amongst the most significant events and occurrences of contemporary NZ art. In that exhibition and those that followed Frizzell subjected the tiki form to stylistic transformations and the varied history of abstract art. Astonishing works resulted; endless arguments around dining tables in Auckland began…

Then one day last year while on the phone, Frizzell was doodling at his drawing board, the photograph of him in front of the Picasso pinned to the wall, and in that moment of unconsciousness the work “unspooled itself” and he “unlocked the structural code that brought the tiki forth.” (2) In Le Grande Tiki we see flat planes of colour and the basic structure of Picasso’s vigorous composition subtly transmuted as the tables and still life are reorganised into a full length tiki which then looks back with (the paradox of) wide-eyed wonder at the whole process.

1, 2. Dick Frizzell, artist notes, emailed 17 December 2013

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

NEIL DAWSON 2

Vortex 9 (2013) painted steel size: 1305 x 1300 x 310 mm

Vortex 9 is the first of the Dawson vortex forms to be concave in shape and in that process it attains a wonderful lightness of being.

The key motif is a line drawing of the ubiquitous I-beam. Dawson presents this with scale decreasing towards the middle, creating an irresistible rotary motion.

To emphasise this he masterfully adapts the tone of the painted surface – at the outer edge it is indistinct, illusionary and somewhat blurred; in the centre the tone is stronger, darker and certain. The eye is taken into the centre by korulike patterns between which a star-shape space sits flat to the wall surface.

The fluorescent pink refracts light in a noticeably soft manner - visual ambiguity arises in this way and that sensation is (paradoxically) augmented by the enlarged shadows created by the spiralling pattern and the work’s shape.

There are illusions of mass but the rotating motion also contradicts this. There are wonderful dynamics of movement and an aspirational, expansive quality to this work as the I-beams reach (finger-like) beyond the notional edges of the concave form.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Silver Linings, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2013

KARL MAUGHAN 3

Ohinetahi (2014) oil on linen stretcher: 1016 x 1016 x 33 mm signed, dated “FEB 2014” & titled verso

Ohinetahi takes its title from Sir Miles Warren’s home and garden from which Karl Maughan has over the years built a large body of work.

How can a painting be a treatise on side by side expressionistic abstract technique when viewed close and be so commanding in its naturalism from a distance that you could swear it would be possible to enter the work and smell the flowers? Answer – when it is a Maughan.

Ohinetahi is a compelling example – simply modelled and constructed with a tightly argued palette; light casting from the left side; a strong suggestion of what lies partially hidden behind.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Woodland, Milford Galleries Queenstown, 2014

BRENT WONG 4

Clouds (1998) acrylic on board frame: 542 x 652 x 30 mm panel: 385 x 497 mm signed & dated bottom left signed, dated & titled verso

Clouds is a meditative work; lacking the unsettling tension of many of Wong’s earlier landscapes, it presents at first a deceptively simple picture. The painting’s flawless detailing is revealed gradually and draws the viewer in to an ever closer examination of the subject.

The astonishing complexity of the sea’s surface reveals Wong’s continued exploration of light; each refraction of ripple and shadow of cloud creates the illusion of an extended reality beneath the smooth surface of the work. The clouds hover just above a blurred sliver of horizon, creating a window through which the eye may travel further ‘into’ the picture plane. Wong creates an illusion of both time and space in which the viewer may experience more fully his created world.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

ROBERT ELLIS 5

City with New Flyover (1968) oil on board frame: 690 x 690 mm panel: 615 x 615 mm signed & dated bottom left

Scarlet, arterial roads cut through an impasto landscape in the top half of City with New Flyover, Ellis’ bird’s-eye view of Auckland. Thick brushstrokes create the architecture of the city, each carefully applied to create an organic grid of layered colour. Below this, the abstract sweep of a motorway mimics the curve of green hill, hinting at the landscapes of McCahon with its deceptively simple form.

Robert Ellis’ Motorways period (1960-74) has been called “one of the most sustained and significant contributions to painting in New Zealand,” (1) and City with New Flyover is a beautifully formed distillation of Ellis’ investigation into urbanisation and development.

1. Warwick Brown, “A Motorway Journey, Paintings by Robert Ellis,” Art NZ, Issue 34, Autumn, 1985, p. 36

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Auckland Art Fair, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2011 Robert Ellis, TURANGAWAEWAE – A Place to Stand, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2014-15

ANN ROBINSON 6

Twisted Flax Pods (2011/14) cast glass & aluminium smaller pod: 80 x 1140 x 335 mm larger pod: 75 x 1400 x 290 mm each pod signed, dated, numbered “1/1” & inscribed “NZ”

Originally cast in her usual manner, the surface of these pods have been substantially removed by being carved back. This is the first time Ann Robinson has worked to such an extent in this manner.

In this process the formal naturalistic qualities have been emphasised and remarkable visual rhythms of the rolling form released.

The result is these pod forms are unlike any others made by her.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

MICHAEL HIGHT 7

Haldon Station (2013) oil on linen stretcher: 1050 x 2350 x 35 mm titled bottom left, signed & dated bottom right signed, dated & titled verso

Haldon Station is a tour de force. Hight’s mastery of light and dark, his understanding of the fluctuations between these as they occur out in the landscape, animate this wonderful work in both subtle and very dramatic ways.

The beehives are slightly forward of the eucalypts, sitting out so as to be kissed by side light in stark and exhilarating contrast to the contained, protective spaces under the trees. Behind this, our eyes cross a farm paddock to a soft tube-like formation of fecund willow trees that travel from edge to edge. These further the key role of contrast with that of the barren, scree-shingle, snow-smattered alps sitting back behind.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

PAUL DIBBLE 8

Haeata/Dawn and Porehu/Dusk after Michelangelo’s Tomb for the Medici (2002) 2 pieces; cast bronze Haeata: 2405 x 1330 x 620 mm Porehu: 2385 x 1315 x 630 mm artist’s proof + edition of 3 each signed & dated on side of base near bottom Dibble names these works with a nod to the Renaissance marbles, ‘Dawn and Dusk’, that feature on the tomb of Lorenzo di Piero de‘ Medici in Florence’s Basilica of San Lorenzo. Haeata and Porehu possess the same sense of calm as Michelangelo’s languid originals and both serve as lasting metaphors for the transitory and cyclical nature of existence. Dibble draws on multiple historic, stylistic, and cultural traditions to create sculpture for the ages to come.

The softly curved planes, abstracted forms and voids of Dibble’s works owe more to the modernism of Henry Moore than the classicism of Michelangelo but the plasticity seen in Michelangelo’s carved stone is also a feature of Dibble’s cast bronze. The slim, flattened bodies of Haeata and Porehu appear strong but not weighted down. Much of the feeling of lightness is due to Dibble’s use of voids within the figures: the organic spaces draw the eye into and then through each sculpture. The softly textured surface of the bases likewise moderate the hard edges of their geometry and as light moves across, and through, the works, the richness of the bronze patina is brought to life and Dawn and Dusk glimmer.

Almost mirror images of one another, it is the slight differences between Haeata and Porehu that bring the pair to life. Their closed eyes leave the viewer to consider whether they are on the verge of waking or sleeping; as their names suggest, they are emblems of the fleeting in-between times, the edges of day and night.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

WILLIAM SUTTON 9

Plantation Series XIV (1986) oil on canvas frame: 640 x 789 x 43 mm signed & dated bottom right Christchurch-born Bill Sutton is one of the finest proponents of New Zealand regionalist painting and his works display an eye attuned over years to the expanses of Canterbury’s sky, plain and hill. His painting captured the essence of his environs, be it a small country settlement or freshly turned paddocks under a clear New Zealand light: “I put myself in the middle of my own environment. Here I am. This is what I like.”

(1) “Originally a protest at encroaching pine plantations on the Canterbury landscape, [the Plantation Series] conveys a sense of vastness in the region… Completed when the artist was in his seventies, they are some of his finest works.” (2) Plantation Series XIV is a landscape of simple form and pattern from a restrained palette of blue and gold. The foreground is dominated by sunburnt hills and dark hedgerows, which are defined by softly textured brushwork. The thin layers of paint used by Sutton create rich and complex colour from a narrow band of hues, and in places he allows the canvas to show through, adding its own grain to the landscape.

At close proximity, ultramarine shadows hide in the pinus radiata hedges, evoking their dense, light-impervious foliage. In contrast to this the sweeping arches of cloud evidence open, confident gestures, and the clear tones of blue recede to a faraway horizon.

1. Quoted in Pat Unger, WA Sutton: Painter, Hazard Press, Christchurch, 1994, p. 15 2. Elizabeth Caughey and John Gow, Contemporary New Zealand Art 2, David Bateman Ltd, 1999. p. 93

Provenance

Private Collection, Duendin

Exhibited

WA Sutton – Plantation Series, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch, 1986

SHIGEYUKI KIHARA 10

Mass Grave, Vaimoso (2013/14) c-print frame: 1440 x 1930 x 60 mm printed image: 1188 x 1680 mm edition 1 of 2 + 1 artist proof signed & dated certificate Mass Grave, Vaimoso is thematically linked to Shigeyuki Kihara’s 2013 series Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Referencing the staged photographic postcards of the ‘South Seas,’ it featured Kihara inhabiting the role of ‘Salome’ who stands witness to scenes of political, historical and cultural importance in present-day Samoa. Kihara/Salome mourns for a Samoa far removed from the Pacific paradise fashioned by colonial powers and modern-day travel brochures.

Not shown with the series, this image was chosen for individual release in large format; this is the first time it has been exhibited as well as the first work at this scale

by Kihara.

In 1918, Western Samoa lost one fifth of its population (8,500 people) to the influenza pandemic which was brought to the country from Auckland by the trading ship Talune. It is widely accepted that the New Zealand colonial powers not only allowed the disease to enter the country, ignoring the fact that the ship had been quarantined in Fiji, but contributed directly to the horrific death toll by refusing offers of medical aid from American Samoa, providing little or no medical assistance, and by directly hindering the efforts of the populace to set up treatment centres. (1) In Mass Grave, Vaimoso, Kihara-as-Salome revisits the largest of the mass burial sites where the victims of the pandemic were interred without ceremony. The viewer follows her gaze to the weathered cross and further to the solar panel on the roof beyond, creating a linear narrative from past to present (and future?). The chiaroscuro effect of the dense foliage against the overcast sky reinforce Kihara/Salome’s line of sight, drawing the viewer into the work.

1. Influenza hits Samoa, http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/influenza-pandemic-hitssamoa, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, updated 15 July, 2013, accessed 3/6/14

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

PAT HANLY 11

Vacation (2001) stained & painted glass frame: 838 x 938 x 20 mm glass window: 764 x 865 mm signed, dated & titled bottom left of centre

Pat Hanly worked with stained glass throughout his career in direct association with his son, Ben Hanly, and Suzanne Johnson, of The Glassworks. Hanly’s expressionistic symbolism documented an era of significant social change when art engaged with the political landscape directly on a myriad of matters.

Vacation is a beautiful work, containing all of the acclaimed elements of Hanly’s work - clear flat planes of colour, blasts of light and “the rainbowinflected character” (1) with profound sensations of the sea and summer. Its wonderful celebratory tone is unmistakable.

Central also to his work – and in clear evidence in “Vacation” – are narratives of renewed hope, perpetual evolution and in particular explicit dialogues about the sensual relationship between the sexes.

1. Gregory O’Brien, Pat Hanly, Ron Sang Publications, 2012, p. 10

Provenance

Private Collection, Auckland

JOANNA BRAITHWAITE 12

Grand Times (2013/14) oil on canvas stretcher: 1984 x 1679 x 22 mm signed, dated & titled verso

Artfully posing with their trappings of wealth, the two skinks in Grand Times exude an air of self-satisfied Victorian gentlemen. The deep mottled background, arranged postures and dramatic lighting would not be out of place in a 19th century portrait. Braithwaite’s use of these familiar pictorial devices allows the viewer to accept more easily lizards in lieu of be-whiskered bankers. She does not sentimentalise the subjects; the studied realism with which she paints them ensures that they are skinks first and wealthy, gold nugget-owning individuals second.

With reptiles traditionally considered one of the lowest of the animal orders, by placing this pair centre-stage Braithwaite plays with the established hierarchies of animal and human. She questions who the “loathsome reptiles, engendered in the slime and darkness” (1) really are.

1. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, p. 156, http://www.literaturepage.com/read/olivertwist-156. html, accessed 13/6/14

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Home Truths, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2014

REUBEN PATERSON 13

Ginger Beer (2011) glitter & synthetic polymer on canvas stretcher: 1500 x 1500 x 37 mm signed & dated verso

“Reuben Paterson’s exquisite use of a material we employ to give the everyday a sprinkle of magic dust - glitter - lifts things out of the real world to let us consider them anew. The patterns and images he adapts are seductive in their familiarity and kitschness, but also in how they have become suddenly, shimmeringly strange.” (1) Ginger Beer explores how memories of family and place can be manipulated and distorted over time. Using a vintage floral pattern that recalls his mother and maternal grandmother, Paterson warps the image to create layer upon layer of visual trickery. The flower forms flow over the black background, their sinuous movement enhanced by the glinting facets of Paterson’s medium.

The restricted palette makes the most of the optical qualities of colour: as the black background absorbs light it creates a depth of field, against which the coloured flowers appear to advance and float ‘above’ the surface.

1. Mark Amery, “Beastly Beautiful,” Dominion Post, 3 March, 2011

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Material Motives, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2011 Auckland Art Fair, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2011

TOSS WOOLLASTON 14

Portrait of a Young Man (1973) oil on board frame: 946 x 853 x 22 mm signed & dated bottom left dated & numbered “73/135” verso

This is a rare and important portrait, imbued with significant feelings, moods and emotions.

It has numerous elements in common with Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (1939) in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery – the contemplative repose of the sitter; the interplay of rhythms, forms and colour harmonies; the role of line as structure.

There can be no doubt Woollaston is expressing his emotional response to the sitter and that the pictorial goal is to represent those sensations and feelings.

Portrait of a Young Man is delivered plein air – light lapping his face, the triangulation of a glasshouse behind.

Provenance

Private Collection, Nelson

MERVYN WILLIAMS 15

Gathering (1991) acrylic on canvas stretcher: 1907 x 1677 x 34 mm signed, dated & titled verso

Mervyn Williams is an internationally significant artist who has invented a remarkable style that oscillates “between abstraction and representation.

Williams’ paintings … are wrapped in a range of beguiling effects: the painted canvas seems to billow and crease; to conjure up the sensation of cotton, felt, satin…” (1)

Gathering is a superb example of Williams’ mastery of illusion and it is the magic of that which elicits “responses of surprise and wonder.” (2) 1. Edward Hanfling, “Panning for Gold: Two Decades of Painted Illusion”, Mervyn Williams: From Modernism to the Digital Age, Ron Sang Publications, 2014 2. Ibid

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

CHRISTINE WEBSTER 16

Therapies 8 (2013) c-type photograph sheet: 1115 x 781 mm printed image: 997 x 662 mm edition 1 of 10 signed, dated, titled & numbered verso

Webster’s most recent photographic series, Therapies, is a narrative of unease; she peels back the artifice of beauty to the dark stories that lie underneath. Unspoken violence, sexual tension, mental distress and physical degradation confront viewers in images that are carefully choreographed and beautifully produced. Webster’s desolate landscapes are blurred and damp with fog, while her portraits deny the gaze of her subjects, inviting instead their objectification. Viewers are forced into the unsettling position of voyeur as Webster’s lens lingers on the textures of naked skin and dishevelled clothes.

“Therapies bears the hallmarks of ritual – silence, refuge for the body and spirit, and, as Webster says, ‘moments where they can touch the sublime.’” (1) Therapies 8 is a portrait stripped bare and the column of the subject’s throat is offered up as either sacrifice or an act of defiance. Blooming lilacs frame the hard lines of cheekbones, nose and tendons, emphasising the strength of the body as well as its inherent vulnerability. This most exposed of poses asks who controls the narrative(s) of the image: the viewer who looks or the subject who draws the eye?

1. Nina Seja, “Refuge and Ritual Trust: Christine Webster’s Therapies,” Art NZ, Issue 150, Winter 2014, p. 73

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Therapies, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2013 Therapies, Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, 2014

JENNA PACKER 17

The Ascension of the Bankers (2013/14) acrylic on canvas stretcher: 1204 x 1602 x 45 mm signed bottom right Jenna Packer paints metaphorical and alternate histories/potential futures. Every work contains parables of the ‘everyman’ within the over-arching, meta-narrative, her paintings reveal stories within stories.

Her exhibition, States of Emergency, Feb 2014, was a powerful commentary on New Zealand (and global) society, and central to the show was her appropriation of Merrill Lynch’s corporate logo, the bull, with its inherent associations of power and aggression. Directly referencing current and ongoing debate surrounding global financial systems, Packer queries the morality of a structure designed to create excessive wealth for an elect few, while remaining divorced from the social realities of the majority living in its shadow.

In The Ascension of The Bankers Packer’s hollow idol dominates the canvas, blind to the populace over which it towers. Like the Trojan Horse, the bull appears initially as a treasure of great price but proves false, providing only protection for those intent on pillage. It looms over the houses of government and the towers of industry and commerce, while its functionaries escape the chaos below. The ‘bull market’ has truly arrived, complete with collateral damage.

Ascension of the Bankers reveals a strongly visualised concept illustrated with finelyhoned skills. Utilising techniques drawn from fresco painting, the layers of pigment and glaze give this work a luminous quality and the sepia tones Packer chooses reinforce the idea that she is documenting a history, albeit one that may yet come to pass.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

States of Emergency, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2014

W D HAMMOND 18

Headset 3 & 4 (1989) diptych; acrylic on wallpaper frame: 2188 x 1253 x 35 mm left panel: 1800 x 526 mm right panel: 1960 x 526 mm left panel: titled lower left, signed & dated lower right right panel: signed, dated & titled upper right

Painted before the internet was king and cellphones became travelling repositories of all knowledge fit to google, Headset 3 & 4 may be read as a prescient parable for today’s ever-connected world. Hammond’s painted vision is “full of sound and fury”; (1) all angles and scarlet clamour, it’s the artist’s version of an electronic, Dante-esque hell.

Hammond’s automaton-like figures inhabit a world where communication, sex and nature are commodified units of exchange. With uniform heads arrayed in grids like links in a circuit board, Hammond uses repeated waves and lines, and the strong contrast of red and black on white to create a background of visual noise that is unceasing. The paradox Hammond explores in Headset 3 & 4 is just as relevant today as it was when he created this work: where does space remain for human connection when individuals have become cogs in an industrialised system and interconnectivity increases transmission but drowns out communication?

1. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 2, Line 27

Provenance

Private Collection, Dunedin

NIGEL BROWN 19

Resonate (2008) oil & acrylic on plywood frame: 1265 x 844 x 58 mm signed & dated lower right signed, dated, titled, “Cosy Nook” & background notes inscribed verso

No New Zealand artist has so directly, repeatedly or so diversely examined the role of Cook in our history and our today.

Cook is presented as a visionary town-crier, self-aware of the significance of what his engagement with NZ has begun. Cook is revealed as prescient, in front of a landscape filled with cultural symbols and Brown’s humanistic motifs.

There are numerous visual allusions to the vocabulary of music. In the rising/ falling repetition of the word “Resonate” Brown deftly implies (in a multiple image) the architecture of a church, a bishop’s hat, a church bell ‘protectively’ surrounding a cottage that sits at his feet.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

All Our Days, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2009

MIKE PETRE 20

Field Study 120 (2009) oil on canvas stretcher: 1675 x 2135 x 35 mm signed & dated bottom right signed, dated & titled verso

Part-commodity, part-farmed animal, part-abstracted beast. Mike Petre’s intense, close-up treatments of rural reality have achieved iconic status. His is no rural arcadia. He presents animals as objects, returning the viewer’s gaze, seemingly aware of what awaits them.

This is an important yet deceptively simple painting, energised by localised experience. Petre is summarising rural reality and although each animal is rendered differently – in a blend of abstract and representational palette-knife technique – it is the commonality of their lives, role and fate, which means the only consequence of importance, in our regard, is what product or cut they will finally become.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Mike Petre - New Works, Milford Galleries Queenstown, 2009

PHILIP CLAIRMONT 21

Untitled (Flowers in a Vase) (1980) oil on jute frame: 2570 x 1960 mm signed & dated lower right This is the most significant Clairmont painting to have come available this century. It is comprised of three jute panels laid on board and is in superb condition.

Characteristically, this major work mixes the message up – it celebrates the mundane but notions of threat emerge. Clairmont distorts form, heightens colour and uses gestural brushwork. He builds an atmosphere of threat, presenting the domestic environment as full of hallucinations. He is critiquing “the domestic values often upheld as the moral basis of New Zealand life.” (1) Clairmont sought to “transform an object” (2) and to obtain “the un-answerable authority of essentialism” (3) in his work. “The manipulation of ambiguity and contradiction was a central part of Clairmont’s working process.” (4) Untitled (Flowers in a Vase) represents Clairmont at the height of his considerable expressionistic powers. We witness a domestic still-life scene that contains the subjective responses of the painter. A mirror establishes a visual “division between inner and outer” (5) and symbolises that the search for self and identity must be located everywhere and anywhere.

1. Michael Dunn, “Painting since 1970,” Two Hundred and Forty Years of New Zealand Painting, Docking, Dunn and Hanfling, David Bateman Ltd, 2012, p. 207 2. Philip Clairmont in “Philip Clairmont Paints a Triptych,” Art NZ, Issue 11, Spring 1978, p. 41 3. Jim and Mary Barr, Philip Clairmont, Sarjeant Gallery Wanganui, 1987, p. 66 4. Ibid, p. 66 5. Ibid, p. 69

Provenance

Private Collection Dunedin

Exhibited

Large Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2011

NEIL DAWSON 22

Plate 16 (2011) painted steel size: 1138 x 1207 x 100 mm

This is a tale of forbidden love.

Neil Dawson first used design elements drawn from the Chinese Willow Plate in the acclaimed 2008 exhibition Old/New/Borrowed/Blue.

In Plate 16 he has combined parts of that pattern and tale with fan-like portions of plates smashed in a Greek wedding. The story told by the willow pattern is of two lovers who, forbidden by their parents to be together, run away and are pursued. As they cross a bridge, gods take pity on their plight, turning them into birds, and so they fly away, united forever. These gold fan forms spin the narrative around, and addional metaphors of love and unity emerge as they overlay the more elaborate circular patterns of the willow plate borders.

Dawson uses shadow and repetition as a rhythmic device. The varied positioning and scale of the gold fans causes the work to move in wondrous ways as we are absorbed in the lovers’ plight; watch their escape and come to celebrate.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

NEIL FRAZER 23

Black Sand Peak (2006/08) acrylic on canvas stretcher: 1528 x 1530 x 25 mm signed, dated “2006”, “2008” & titled verso upper centre

Frazer uses a thick impasto technique and applies paint using “rags, brushes and his own hands,” (1) the end result of which is that his gestures become one and the same as the striations of the cliffs and movements of water on the canvas. In the artist’s hands, the paint is malleable and tactile - almost clay-like; even the mutable reflections appear carved out of the water. His paintings possess a barely contained energy that can be seen in every solid swirl of paint on the canvas.

The sky of Black Sand Peak is a void; flat and white, its featureless absence throws into strong relief the dominant presence of rock, sand and sea. The tension Frazer captures between this absence/presence enhances the powerful composition of the works, necessary when he uses his medium in an almost sculptural manner. The tactile paint surfaces advance from the twodimensional canvas, creating actual - not imagined - shadows that emphasise further the physicality of the subject matter.

1. Felicity Milburn, Neil Frazer: Stretched to the Limit, McDougall Art Annex, 1996

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Snow, Rock, Sand, Milford Galleries Queenstown, 2010

ANDY LELEISI’UAO 24

Pa’ceania Part 1 - V (2010) acrylic on canvas stretcher: 760 x 1521 x 35 mm

The industrious, human-like creatures who people Pa’ceania Part 1 – V are linked in an undefined common purpose; groups work together carrying and lifting, individuals sit in thought or prayer. The interaction between the individuals and groups reveals a palpable sense of community and awakens an uneasy sense of recognition in the viewer. Leleisi’uao’s repeated motifs of hands, bones and profiled faces not only provide visual touchstones within his body of work, but also serve to remind us of the inherent humanity of his creatures, and the universality of their struggle and endeavour within a limited existence.

Separated into strata influenced by the patterning of siapa cloth, Leleisi’uao provides a variety of ways to enter his visual ‘text’. The strong horizontals invite reading from left to right, and top to bottom, as with the [Western] written word.

At the same time, each of the nine layers may be taken as a self-contained world, loosely linked to the others by physical proximity and commonalities of activity and environment. Within each of these there exist yet smaller groupings of individuals, each with their own story to be told. The world Leleisi’uao creates is indeed ‘multi-storied’, in both the figurative and narrative sense.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Wandering through Pandemonium Quiet, Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch, 2010 Parallel, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2013

BRENT WONG 25

Hills with Lake and Clouds (1979) acrylic on board frame: 678 x 868 x 45 mm panel: 495 x 686 mm signed & dated bottom left signed, dated & titled verso

Brent Wong’s landscapes combine the most detailed landscape painting with dreamlike elements to create paintings that are paradoxical and unsettling.

Suffused with a sense of déjà vu, they are the remembered locations of an uneasy dream. The New Zealand environment Wong depicts is stark and empty, and vaguely threatening. The viewer is left in limbo as Wong identifies neither place nor time; the tanned and ageless hills could easily be from the Hawkes’ Bay or the Maniototo or the Kapiti Coast.

Hills with Lake and Clouds spans the period between Wong’s starkly surreal, object-filled landscapes of the 1970s, and his later exploration into the optical and spiritual effects of light phenomena. In this work, the artist’s masterful composition adroitly controls the viewer’s first experience of the painting. The blurred outlines and strong diagonal of the grassed slope in the foreground of the painting shifts the focus to the horizon where the fluid, shadowed, contour lines then draw the eyes down to the disc of lake on the valley floor. Its form mirrored by the lenticular clouds that float above, painted in the deepest sapphire, and with a surface recalling textured velvet, it is hyper-real - a lake of the imagination rather than the real world.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

TERRY STRINGER 26

Four Aspects (2012) cast bronze size (h x ø): 2060 x 600 mm edition 3 of 3 signed & dated at bottom of sculpture In the 1980s Terry Stringer “emerged as one of New Zealand’s best figurative sculptors.

He doesn’t break rules, he transforms them. Weight-shifter, shape-shifter, he sets the scene… His tricks of perception have become a phenomenological game for one player: you the observer in an uncertain universe. His sculptures flick in and out of focus. To get the best out of them, you have to move around them.” (1) Stringer continues to explore relationships between multiple figures in Four Aspects, the sinuous curves of which are accentuated by soft shading in the bronze patina.

Emphasising the fact that it is impossible to observe fully a three–dimensional object at one time, Stringer’s use of line and elongated form draws the viewer’s eye (and body) around the work. Moving around the sculpture, each ‘aspect’ is gradually revealed and presents shifting focal points to the viewer. Stringer sees the transitions between face/hand/foot as points upon which the eye can rest before adjusting to a new subject and perspective.

The physical interaction required to experience the work in its entirety mirrors the work that the mind must do in order to collate overlapping stories, each relative to and drawing upon one another. Four Aspects presents a range of truths, each defined by a particular viewpoint and each subject to re-imagining with only a small shift in perspective.

1. David Eggleton, “Shape Shifter, Sculptor Terry Stringer makes works of ambiguous beauty,” NZ Listener, 3 October, 1998

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

KARL MAUGHAN 27

Bottle Lake (2012) oil on linen stretcher: 1800 x 1800 x 35 mm

Bottle Lake is an amalgam of statement and suggestion, an invented world based on the known and the real. Karl Maughan has a remarkable ability to use shape repetition, sliding pictorial depth, the tactility of expressionism, distinct brushstrokes that function in an abstract colour field, ultra-realistic chiaroscuro-modelled three dimensional spaces, and the fall of shadow to build the architecture of place with an acute combination of naturalism. He positions colour side by side, enlivening the surface with powerful sensations of the painter’s hand and yet the works coalesce to being almost photographic in quality.

Bottle Lake is a powerful testimony to how considerable this achievement now is.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

New Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2013

CHRISTINE WEBSTER 28

Le Dossier 6 (vi) (2006) c-type photograph frame: 595 x 842 x 35 mm sheet: 497 x 744 mm edition 1 of 10 signed, dated, titled & numbered verso of photograph

Unnerving and lush, Christine Webster’s photographs bring private personae into the public eye, querying the layers of identities we assume. Her examination of hidden desires and secret motivations often conflates elements of fantasy, eroticism and violence, subtexts not normally on view.

The Le Dossier series has a filmic feel to it; the artist’s hand controls the action and the focus. Rather than a single narrative line, reconfiguration of the photographs allows for multiple retellings. Derelict, forgotten spaces frame the female subjects and the sexualised images seem ‘out of context’ in a society more used to the glossy airbrushing of pornography.

“There is a conflict of the erotically attractive and squalidly repulsive in these works, setting up fierce yet ambivalent emotions in the viewer… these works are not for the faint of heart, but impel you to look.” (1) 1. James Dignan, “Art Seen: Le Dossier, Christine Webster,” Otago Daily Times, 26/07/12, p. 28

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Le Dossier, Queensland Centre for Photography, 2006 Provocations: The Work of Christine Webster, Christchurch Art Gallery, 2010 Le Dossier, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2012

ROBERT ELLIS 29

Ra Tapu Te Rawhiti, 3 Hune 1990 (1990) acrylic on canvas frame: 1648 x 2005 x 55 mm signed, dated & titled bottom right

“Ellis is one of the very few painters to make a reality of biculturalism and the contribution of his work to this stream of New Zealand art is vastly underestimated.” (1) Replete with symbolism, Ra Tapu Te Rawhiti, 3 Hune 1990 reflects the spiritual landscape Ellis has developed over time. Ellis weaves together threads from his own sense of place and history with those drawn from his wife’s Ratana faith and Ngapuhi/Ngati Porou heritage to address ongoing discussions about past land appropriation and the role this has played in the physical and spiritual alienation of Maori from their turangawaewae.

Against a backdrop of constellations, the holy day (Ra Tapu) chalice is offered up on a hand adorned with signs taken from the zodiac, Ratana, and Ellis’ own symbolic language. Reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts, the rich colour choices reinforce the spiritual dimensions of the work. The detailed and deliberate texture of Ellis’ mark-making emphasises the unseen hand that writes as well as the visible hand that becomes page: “the Word became flesh”. (2) 1. Hamish Keith, “The Viewer”, Sunday Star Times, 26 October, 2003 2. John 1:14, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

MICHAEL HIGHT 30

Matukituki River (2011) oil on linen stretcher: 1117 x 2135 x 33 mm titled bottom left, signed & dated bottom right signed, dated & titled verso

This is a simply outstanding painting, delivered with all of Michael Hight’s acclaimed trademark language: stunning clarity, deft chiaroscuro, emphatic reality, sharp lines and regular geometry.

The subtle interplay of the thrice-repeated key horizontal elements in this composition allow Hight to reveal additional information slowly – the beehives in the foreground at first hide information about the river flat folding down and away. The grey sliver of a road intersects. The leafless poplars breach the landscape, reach into the skyline.

We are being given seasonal information, presented a contained singular moment in an exacting conversation about how we live.

Matukituki River attains the authority of accuracy and the unwavering certainty of place and time.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Michael Hight - Recent Work, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2012

GRAHAM BENNETT 31

Guidelines (2006) stainless steel & granodiorite stones size: 1830 x 1555 x 1200 mm

The skeletal map-like frame of Guidelines is a four-sided 4/18th (pod form) segment of the globe.

There is a grid pattern on its surface that is intersected by lines of latitude and longitude as well as mapping and navigational overlays that explicitly reference the history of cartography, exploration and journeys in the Pacific as various as Cook and those contained in early Polynesian stick-charts. The navigational maps act as guidelines and signifiers for finding direction geographically, culturally and historically, as well as exploring themes of connections and divisions. There are environmental dialogues (the stones being gathered from Boulder Bank, Nelson - geographically the centre of NZ); in this manner Bennett extends a language of place and time.

Guidelines is suspended in space and floats in three-dimensions, while also pointing to the ground. Bennett also reveals a fourth dimensional internal space that metaphorically and symbolically develops further the environmental discourse.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Squaring the Circle, Milford Galleries Auckland and Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2006

Published

Graham Bennett, Squaring the Circle: New Work by Graham Bennett, Gina Irish & Ruth Harvey, Milford Galleries Auckland and Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2006 David Eggleton, ”Rock Art: The Holy Stones of Graham Bennett,” NZ Listener, October 14, 2006

ROSS RITCHIE 32

River Road I (1992/93) oil on canvas stretcher: 1624 x 1560 x 30 mm signed & dated left, top third of painting “I use images and symbols in a similar manner to that which I imagine a poet would of words, i.e. not to tell a story but to provide points of recognition or contact, which can be reassembled visually to make a statement or formulate questions or ideas. Thus I rely on what is commonly called ‘poetic license’ in my use of imagery.” (1) From Ritchie’s River and Landscape series, River Road I deconstructs any preconceived ideas of what constitutes ‘painting’. The two-piece work, featuring a small canvas atop a large one, both depicting the same scene, calls into question the two-dimensionality of the artwork’s surface and blurs the line between painting and sculpture, painting and installation.

Traditional compositional elements are also subverted by the white lines that float above Ritchie’s landscape as well as outline selected details. Reminiscent of preliminary drafting lines, they ignore his carefully painted perspective and emphasise the illusion inherent in this – and all – painting. The numbered grid that outlines the small canvas further defies any attempt at realistic representation, reinforcing the technique and hand of the artist that lies behind the painted river, sea, and sky.

1. Ross Ritchie, Artist Statement, 2001

Provenance

Private Collection, Dunedin

Exhibited

Claybrook Gallery, Auckland, 1993

SHIGEYUKI KIHARA 33

Siva in Motion (2012) single channel digital video, silent 8 min 14 sec edition 3 of 4 + 1 artist’s proof signed & dated certificate Originally commissioned by the Auckland Art Gallery and recently acquired by the prestigious Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Siva in Motion operates as a social commentary on the rich multiplicity of Samoan histories and their appropriation by colonial voices for a colonial audience. The work features Kihara costumed in Victorian mourning dress performing an adaptation of the tauluga, a traditional Samoan dance form. She inhabits a character she calls Salome, whose genesis came from Kihara’s research into early studio photography and discovery of an 1886 Thomas Andrew image called Samoan half caste in Te Papa’s archives.

The multiple tracking of Kihara’s dance movements in the video work creates a sense of numerous time-frames layered upon one another. The single character of Salome becomes a multitude as the dance continues, each reclaiming her own cultural histories as well as mourning those who fought to do the same in Samoa’s past.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Home Akl, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2012 Shigeyuki Kihara: Undressing the Pacific, The Hocken Library, University of Otago, 2013 Paradise Lost? Contemporary Works from the Pacific, Museum of Anthropolgy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2013 Salt 8: Shigeyuki Kihara, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 2013/14 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2013/14 Dance of the Seven Veils, Corban Estate Arts Centre, Auckland, 2014 Where We’re At! Other Voices on Gender, Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, 2014 Mother/Land, Kurumaya Muyseum of Art, Oyama City, 2014

IAN SCOTT 34

Lattice No. 62 (1979) acrylic on canvas stretcher: 1145 x 1145 x 39 mm signed, dated “Sept 1979,” titled & inscribed “Colours on Black No. 6” verso

“The introduction of black in Lattices of 1978 added to the range of spatial effects Scott had at his disposal” (1) As a very early work from the series, Lattice No. 62 is a classic example of Scott’s Lattice form and shows the relatively recent addition of black into the works.

By doing this, he utilises the advancing and recessive properties of colour to create a much greater illusion of background depth. As the black recedes ‘into’ the picture plane, the bands of colour weave over and underneath one another, creating tension between this and the actual flatness of the surface.

In addition to establishing depth where there is none, Scott expands the picture plane beyond the canvas. The diagonal bands extend fully across the surface of the canvas and are not confined by a border; as with mathematical parallel lines there is the suggestion that they continue ad infinitum across a two-dimensional plane.

1. Edward Hanfling, Ian Scott: Lattices, Ferner Galleries, Auckland, 2005, p. 38

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

DARRYN GEORGE 35

Kete #7 (2009) oil on canvas stretcher: 1013 x 1520 x 35 mm signed, dated & titled verso

Kete #7 is thematically linked to George’s Pukapuka and Rarohiko series, both of which explored the storage and dissemination of knowledge. The painting itself is a receptacle of meaning, its title suggestive of the three kete of knowledge retrieved from the heavens by Tāne.

“I found that when I directly incorporated kowhaiwhai designs into the work they demanded to be painted by hand… and with a little brush. The resulting images were paintings that were a combination of styles, almost a mixing of codes … straight mechanical lines versus hand painted organic lines.” (1) On the canvas, George’s sharp-edged, linear forms are tempered by scrolling kowhaiwhai patterns and richly textured paint surfaces. The artist‘s combination of multiple visual ‘languages’ illustrate his interest in drawing together cultural experiences from varied sources: his Maori whakapapa, Western concepts of minimalism, the qualities of his medium. The rectangles and lines of Kete #7 are suggestive of circuit boards and data ports, and of packaged and defined information. The hand-painted curves of the kowhaiwhai however, reference the human experience, circuitous and subject to the vagaries of memory.

1. Darryn George, “Darryn George Conversation with Deirdre Brown,” Darryn George: Works 2006-09, Mihi Publishers, 2010, p. 110

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

STANLEY PALMER 36

After the Storm 1923 - Piopiotahi (2013) oil on linen stretcher: 770 x 1370 x 35 mm signed & dated bottom right After the Storm 1923 – Piopiotahi exhibits all the nuances of visual language viewers have come to expect from Palmer. The ramshackle buildings with their corrugated roofs are as much part of the artist’s vernacular as are the views across the mountains and sea. These built structures - roads, trig points, sheds, fences – provide a point upon which the eyes can settle and their human scale prevents the open, empty vistas of land from overwhelming the viewer.

The title of the work is a specific reference to the year of Katherine Mansfield’s death and Palmer’s soft, jewel-like palette and delicate brushwork capture visually the quiet melancholy that suffused Mansfield’s short stories: “In the western sky there were great masses of crushed-up rose-coloured clouds.

Broad beams of light shone through the clouds and beyond them as if they would cover the whole sky. Overhead the blue faded; it turned a pale gold, and the bush outlined against it gleamed dark and brilliant like metal.” (1) Like Mansfield, Palmer evokes the feeling of a half-remembered summer, or family holiday, tempering wistful nostalgia with a sense of loss and awareness of time’s passing.

1. Katherine Mansfield, “At the Bay”, http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/assets/KMStories/AT-THE-BAY1921.pdf, accessed 26/6/14

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Paintings and Monoprints, Milford Galleries Queenstown, 2013

REUBEN PATERSON 37

The Nebula NGC in Scorpius (2014) glitter & synthetic polymer on canvas frame: 1535 x 1535 x 54 mm signed & dated verso

The hand-painted black and white background of The Nebula NGC in Scorpius strongly recalls the early works of Op-Art painter Bridget Riley. Like Riley, Paterson uses contrast, tessellation and repetition to fool the eye and the brain into feeling actual movement where there is none. What starts as a purely visual exercise becomes a kinetic one as the viewer experiences the pulsing rhythm and energy of the work; the illusion becomes real. Add to this the nature of Paterson’s refractive, reflective medium and the canvas seems to project a life force of its own.

The Nebula NGC in Scorpius is overlaid with golden poppies which have ‘taken root’ in the surface of the painting, and Paterson has deliberately chosen a bloom replete with historical associations. It extends the narrative of the work from the personal to the societal and reinforces the idea of a continuum through time. The strong juxtapositions of light/dark, geometric/organic, volume/surface create visual tension and require engagement with the work on rational, sensory and symbolic levels.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

In the Company of Animals, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2014

PAUL DIBBLE 38

Parallel Worlds (2010) cast bronze size: 945 x 665 x 120 mm artist’s proof + varied edition of 3 signed & dated on base

Parallel Worlds features Paul Dibble’s characteristic combination of realist and geometric forms, here especially apt as the sculptor explores the dichotomy expressed in the title. Two distinct worlds are immediately identifiable: that of nature, exemplified by the extinct huia, and that of man, which includes the angular ‘tree’ upon which the bird perches.

Huia have special significance for Dibble and he often includes them in his works to invite reflection on the natural environment and the often destructive role of the hand of man. In Parallel Words, the huia looks back as man strides resolutely onward. Rather than depicting these as mutually exclusive spheres however, Dibble plays with the complexities of relationships between them.

Visual elements such as the line of a leg and the huia’s curved body work within the sculpture to suggest an underlying looping figure-eight/infinity form, reinforcing his concept of the interplay of both worlds.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

A Walk in the Park, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2013

MERVYN WILLIAMS 39

Under Capricorn (1999) diptych; acrylic on canvas overall size: 1350 x 1486 x 33 mm panels: 1350 x 743 x 33 mm each left panel signed, dated & titled verso right panel signed & dated verso

The reality of the painted surface, in which defined elements, textures and focal depth significantly alter, begins the viewer’s journey into the myriad of suggestions and deceptions which arise in Under Capricorn. It is simultaneously ambiguous, resolute and uncompromising. Everything is an illusion, fact and fiction are at war, in surfaces where masterfully delivered tonal presences, transitions and chiaroscuro contrasts induce powerful perceptions and enigmatic suggestions.

Williams is acutely aware of the significant inter-relationship between the act of making and the act of viewing. He uses devices such as repetition, visual rhythms, melodic structures, pictorial segmentation and partial divisions to add complexity to the optical experience.

In Under Capricorn there is an unmistakable language about the night sky, overlaid with visual paradox and an amalgam of opposites. It is a wonderfully enigmatic, visually-inspired experience.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

DICK FRIZZELL 40

Pacific Crown (2014) oil on linen stretcher: 1503 x 1503 x 37 mm signed, dated “21/4/2014” & titled bottom right

In 1977 Dick Frizzell began the Canned Fish series which propelled his work to national significance and defined the Pop-Expressionist aesthetic – bright colours, out of register lettering, evidence of (failed, crude) process – that then became one of his fundamental stylistic hallmarks.

In this major new work, Pacific Crown, Frizzell explicitly self-references the important, well-known Holy Mackerel (1977) painting in its palette but extends the pivotal role of image and narrative by up-scaling the central ‘still-life’ considerably.

He also deftly hides the word ‘mackerel’ behind the body colour, placing it as if falling off the canvas bottom. The fish steak is rendered life-like, saturated with its just-caught, oh so fresh appeal. Frizzell depicts and utilises the banal and vulgar (of consumerism), using weight and mass as the fundamental key visual metaphors.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

NIGEL BROWN 41

Te Reo (1984) oil on board frame: 939 x 1246 x 57 mm signed & dated bottom centre signed, dated, titled & inscribed “AUCK” verso

Te Reo is an important anti-nuclear painting, widely shown in exhibitions at that time. The artist’s intent is abundantly clear. An archetypal family faces the viewer, standing in front of a white outlined windowed scenario that includes a meeting house, the conical peak of a landscape and the crossed out mushroom clouds of nuclear bombs. A kite flying a symbol of peace sits between these bombs as a metaphoric symbol.

Brown alludes to Gauguin’s The Vision after the Sermon (from the collection of the Scottish National Gallery) in the dominant red hue and the account of Jacob wrestling with angels. These art and biblical references about the struggles of man, that he can now undo the work of God, move Te Reo from a simply angry political work to one with powerful allegory and universality.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Away and Towards, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2014

NEIL DAWSON 42

Crater - Archaeology (2005) painted steel size (ø x d): 1050 x 120 mm signed certificate

As the title states, Crater - Archaeology explores the architecture of the landscape. It is comprised of steel mesh, domed in shape and contains crosshatched shadows. It is reminiscent of hills and valleys viewed from above.

Dawson transforms this, like a riddle unfolding, using visual interference and (apparently) dislocated shadow to begin a narrative about geomorphology, the history of land and its cultural significance. There are three-spiralling staircases, each slightly altered in rotation and the shadows these make behind the mesh are always lower and different due to the angle of light. Light position also affects the tonal and structural substance of the work and in this way as soon as the viewing position alters so too does the work in ways that are breathtakingly magical.

“The tops of these hill shapes are pierced by illusionist devices that sometimes suggest a natural crater but, more frequently, skilfully suggest winding staircases … flights of steps or … structures cut into the hill.” (1) 1. TJ McNamara, “Startling Revelations in the Flesh,” NZ Herald, 10 August, 2005

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Recent Wall Sculptures, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2005

J S PARKER 43

Plain Song: Song For The Air (2004) oil on canvas stretcher: 1675 x 1675 x 36 mm signed & dated lower right

J S Parker has produced one of the most sustained series of abstract paintings in New Zealand art. His work characteristically references the real world of land and sky, distilling into essences phenomena of place and atmosphere by utilising the chromatics of layered colour, palette knife texture, and structural rhythm.

Plain Song: Song for the Air is a superb example of his compositional unities of balance, harmony, tonal congruence and a signature architectural use of space. There is a profound sense of the layered geological structure of the Marlborough landscape and its relationship to horizon and sky, as well as particular visual phenomena observed in nature.

This beautiful work modulates in space and fluxes in tone. It is both an observation (of light, season and place), and an experience, to be felt and heard.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Four Big Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2005

ANN ROBINSON 44

Rolled Lip Bowl (Citrine) (2013) cast glass size (h x ø): 130 x 540 mm signed, dated, inscribed “AP” & “NZ” verso

Ann Robinson is regarded as one of the truly seminal figures of glass internationally and acknowledged as the inventor of the cast glass method.

Rolled Lip Bowl (Citrine) is a superb example of the fundamental purity of design and essence of form in her work. It is bold in its simplicity, revealing a devotional subject, a South Pacific sensibility in its form. It interacts with light in innumerable ways, changing character and nature – call it tone and substance – in a breath-taking, mesmeric manner. At times the work seems to blur in space and to levitate as the full range of expressions, atmospheres and tones of the Citrine (lemon yellow) colour alter inside the bowl, at its undersides and edges.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Auckland Art Fair, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2013 Spring Catalogue, Milford Galleries Queenstown, 2013

IAN SCOTT 45

Lattice No. 138 (1986) acrylic on canvas stretcher: 1780 x 1780 x 32 mm signed, dated & titled verso

The soft saturation of colour in Lattice No 138 is the most obvious characteristic of this work. Scott uses a mid-tone grey as the ‘background’ colour in the work, also employing it as an outline for each of the diagonal bands of colour.

Without the strongly recessive qualities of pure black, and lacking the contrast of highly saturated hues, the illusion of depth is less demanding and it is easier for the eye to dismiss this in order to concentrate on another aspect of the work.

Scott’s use of secondary and tertiary colours also decreases the initial optical effects of the painting, allowing instead a focus on the colour combinations and forms within the work.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

CHRISTINE WEBSTER 46

Black Carnival #48 - Tamati in Pearls (Laughing) (1993-95) cibachrome print: 2688 x 1268 mm from an edition of 2 titled “Tamati in Pearls (Laughing) #48” verso

First exhibited in 1994, Christine Webster’s Black Carnival series challenged “identity, gender stereotypes, sexuality and the inter-gender balance of sexual power.” (1) Twenty years on, and in a much changed social context, Tamati in Pearls no longer shocks as it might once have, but is no less powerful.

The scale of Tamati in Pearls requires engagement on its own terms. As the glossy black of the cibachrome throws back distorted reflections of the viewer, they become implicit in the work. Webster captures an everyday moment that emphasises Tamati’s humanity, rather than the pearls and wedding dress he wears. The viewer’s recognition of this in both the subject and themselves affords the work longevity and continued relevance.

1. Elizabeth Caughey and John Gow, Contemporary New Zealand Art 4, David Bateman Ltd, 2005, p. 56

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Black Carnival, toured 1994-95, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, City Gallery, Wellington, Waikato Museum, Hamilton, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, Auckland Art Gallery, The New Gallery, Auckland Black Carnival, Queensland Art Gallery, 1996 Mascara I Mirall (Black Carnival), Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona, 1997 Black Carnival, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2002 Black Carnival, Tauranga Art Gallery, 2009/10

WENDY FAIRCLOUGH 47

Four Shades of White (2009) 15 pieces; hand blown glass, sandblasted installation: 330 x 630 x 450 mm cylinder base signed verso

“My glass practice is grounded in an ongoing exploration of human experiences of home, land and a sense of belonging.” (1) Much more than the sum of its parts, Four Shades of White is a quietly powerful piece that hints at an overlooked domestic past. The ghostly vessels suggest a collection of everyday pieces, the utility of which has long since been forgotten; they have become ‘shades’ of their original selves. Fairclough asks if memories linger within particular forms and what becomes of these when a familiar piece is re-configured in a different context.

In addition to posing questions about functionality and context, Four Shades of White explores relationships between physical bodies, the spaces between them, the qualities of light, and the role of volume and mass. A combination of elements create its understated impact: nuanced hues, softness of line, clarity of form, discreet richness of texture.

Fairclough defies a singular definition of colour, and the viewer comes to see that there are not only four shades of white, but many more contained in the work. The vessels seem to emit a soft glow of captured light and the shadows created by each form plays over its neighbour, altering tone and emphasising the subtle curves of the blown glass. Each individual vessel conceals, and is concealed by, the others surrounding it and the installation is as changeable as the point of view.

1. Wendy Fairclough, 2009

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

Light - Gina Jones / Wendy Fairclough, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2009

JOANNA BRAITHWAITE 48

Shifting Tides (2012) oil on canvas stretcher: 1119 x 1119 x 22 mm signed, dated & titled verso

Joanna Braithwaite’s portraits of animals examine the vagaries of the human condition, often with a sly poke at the ridiculousness of everyday life. Shifting Tides references two earlier bodies of work by Braithwaite, Sea Legs (2008) and Passing Through (2009). The former featured a variety of fish taking part in all manner of seaside activities – sunbathing, water-skiing, boating – everything bar swimming. The second captured a variety of subjects on their way to an unknown destination and included gun-toting monkeys on tricycles and dolphins on Segways.

The fish in Shifting Tides appear in the middle of something, and although Braithwaite includes a few contextual clues, the final narrative is left to the viewer to create. She juxtaposes the ordinary with the extra-ordinary, raising questions about who, or what, the ‘other’ is. (1) “My paintings have a humour that is evident, but there’s also a strong underlying curiosity regarding humans’ relationships with animals and our respect for them and the things we share.” (2) 1. Sally Blundell, “Animal Magnetism,” NZ Listener, 4-10 June, 2011, p. 43 2. Joanna Braithwaite, quoted in “Animal Logic”, Mindfood, June 2008, p. 171

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

ANN ROBINSON 49

Geometric Vase (Rhubarb) (2011) cast glass, etched pattern size: 372 x 267 x 267 mm signed, dated, inscribed “1/1” & “NZ” verso The Geometric Vase (Rhubarb) is a unique work that completely changes colour under fluorescent light. It is made of dichroic glass and this rhubarb colour can, with the flick of a light switch, be changed from the pink red we know rhubarb to be to that of completely green.

On its top surface, Robinson has engraved (by sand-blasting) the skeletal structure of a lacebark leaf. This vase was the very first made by her using this new technique.

This deft, subtle, understated motif connects back to the fundamental impulse to all of Robinson’s works, the botanical rhythms of the natural environment.

The role of glass mass (being dramatically thicker than all other previous works) has been elevated to critical importance in what we see and how we see it in this vase. The top has been polished, the sides acid etched. Light enters through the top and is then trapped as it moves about, engaging with the interior space. Variable modulating tones develop – the internal space of the vase hovers in suspension as if independent of all else. The top seems to recede and come forward at the same time – a powerful sensation of infinity is established. At the edges – where the forms become thin, as they alter direction – light flares as if being squeezed out.

The form and design qualities of this remarkable vase are determined by the interplay of three squares: one at the base, two at the top. Robinson connects these with curved rising edges and in this way the vase flares up and fattens out almost imperceptibly.

Provenance

Received from the artist’s studio

Exhibited

The Thick and Thin of it, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2012

Incandescent Light

Fluorescent Light

PRICELIST 1

Dick Frizzell

Le Grande Tiki (2013)

2

Neil Dawson

Vortex 9 (2013)

32,500

3

Karl Maughan

Ohinetahi (2014)

12,500

4

Brent Wong

Clouds (1998)

40,000

5

Robert Ellis

City with New Flyover (1968)

40,000

6

Ann Robinson

Twisted Flax Pods (2011/14)

7

Michael Hight

Haldon Station (2013)

8

Paul Dibble

Haeata/Dawn and Porehu/Dusk... (2002) AP

POA

9

William Sutton

Plantation Series XIV (1986)

POA

10

Shigeyuki Kihara

Mass Grave, Vaimoso (2013/14) ed 1/2

11

Pat Hanly

Vacation (2001)

45,000

12

Joanna Braithwaite

Grand Times (2013/14)

27,500

13

Reuben Paterson

Ginger Beer (2011)

17,500

14

Toss Woollaston

Portrait of a Young Man (1973)

39,000

15

Mervyn Williams

Gathering (1991)

49,000

16

Christine Webster

Therapies 8 (2013) ed 1/10

17

Jenna Packer

The Ascension of the Bankers (2013/14)

9,500

18

W D Hammond

Headset 3 & 4 (1989)

POA

19

Nigel Brown

Resonate (2008)

17,500

20

Mike Petre

Field Study 120 (2009)

17,500

21

Philip Clairmont

Untitled (Flowers in a Vase) (1980)

22

Neil Dawson

Plate 16 (2011)

24,000

23

Neil Frazer

Black Sand Peak (2006/08)

16,000

24

Andy Leleisi’uao

Pa’ceania Part 1 - V (2010)

7,500

25

Brent Wong

Hills with Lake and Clouds (1979)

POA

POA

POA 37,500

(framed) 12,500

(unframed) 7,500

POA

26

Terry Stringer

Four Aspects (2012) ed 3/3

38,000

27

Karl Maughan

Bottle Lake (2012)

32,500

28

Christine Webster

Le Dossier 6 (vi) (2006) ed 1/10

29

Robert Ellis

Ra Tapu Te Rawhiti, 3 Hune 1990 (1990)

30

Michael Hight

Matukituki River (2011)

35,000

31

Graham Bennett

Guidelines (2006)

19,500

32

Ross Ritchie

River Road I (1992/93)

30,000

33

Shigeyuki Kihara

Siva in Motion (2012) ed 3/4

34

Ian Scott

Lattice No. 62 (1979)

15,500

35

Darryn George

Kete #7 (2009)

13,500

36

Stanley Palmer

After the Storm 1923 - Piopiotahi (2013)

17,500

37

Reuben Paterson

The Nebula NGC in Scorpius (2014)

17,500

38

Paul Dibble

Parallel Worlds (2010) AP

19,500

39

Mervyn Williams

Under Capricorn (1999)

42,000

40

Dick Frizzell

Pacific Crown (2014)

41

Nigel Brown

Te Reo (1984)

19,500

42

Neil Dawson

Crater - Archaeology (2005)

19,000

43

J S Parker

Plain Song: Song For The Air (2004)

17,500

44

Ann Robinson

Rolled Lip Bowl (Citrine) (2013)

45

Ian Scott

Lattice No. 138 (1986)

27,500

46

Christine Webster

Black Carnival #48 - Tamati in Pearls... (1993-95) ed of 2

17,500

47

Wendy Fairclough

Four Shades of White (2009)

11,000

48

Joanna Braithwaite

Shifting Tides (2012)

12,000

49

Ann Robinson

Geometric Vase (Rhubarb) (2011)

29,000

(framed) 4,850

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

POA

9,500

POA

POA