1. RICHARD ORJIS, Spleen (2007)
2. RICHARD ORJIS, A Kind of Hush (2008)
x h x d): 945 x 945 x 60 mm
RICHARD ORJIS, The Children
frame (v x h x d): 945 x 945 x 60 mm
RICHARD ORJIS, Gorse and Orchids
6. RICHARD ORJIS, Flower Idol (2006)
c-type print, edition 100/100, frame (v x h x d): 570 x 509 x 43 mm, image (v x h): 212 x 179 mm
Richard Orjis has quickly risen to critical acclaim with seductive, atmospheric and beautifully dark photographs. ‘The Garden’ focuses on a group of works that use the repeated motif of the orchid. In these works the organic flower form takes on humanistic, fantastical and erotic qualities.
There is sense of danger and darkness in these works but also the reality of natural wonder. The orchid’s beauty beckons the viewer, drawing them closer to the flower and ultimately closer the dark void surrounding the stems. ‘A Kind of Hush’ is enticing and seductive, using beauty as a device the purple flower lures its prey. ‘Sisters of the Moon’ displays a single stem heavy with flowers, like a group of beautiful women, brightly coloured and as vivid as the moon when full, capturing the viewers gaze.
In my fictive, mythical world a contemporary pagan, earth-worshipping cult, endeavours to make links with the natural world. Nature here is beautiful and dark, a dangerous spectacle; yet still the starting point of mystical experience. Art history and popular culture; fact and fiction; fear and lust; past, present and future collide. (Orjis 2010)
In the works ‘Spleen (2007) and ‘Gorse and Orchids’ (2007) a muddy figure emerges from the darkness. Engulfed in flowers the figure appears as if part of some sort of ritual, where the boundaries of nature and man have become blurred. Orchids morph into facial features; an eye, a mouth, where does nature end and human begin?
Orjis’s photographs are complex in construction and technically brilliant. Their use of colour, detail and composition make them highly aesthetic and their exaggerated scale renders the subject-matter larger than life.
Mysticism, timelessness and magic are present in these works as the real world merges into fantasy.
EXHIBITION PRICELIST
1 Spleen (2007), edition 4/9 3,800
2 A Kind of Hush (2008), edition 3/8 3,800
3 The Children (2008), edition 3/8 3,800 4 Sisters of the Moon (2008), edition 3/8 3,800 5 Gorse and Orchids (2007), edition 4/9 3,800 6 Flower Idol (2006), edition 100/100
All prices are NZD and include GST; Prices are current at the time of the exhibition
EDUCATION
RICHARD ORJIS
B. 1979, lives Auckland
Master of Fine Arts, Elam, The University of Auckland, 2006
Bachelor of Visual Arts, AUT, Auckland, 2001
Certificate in Art & Design, AUT, Auckland, 1998
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010 A Garden, Milford Galleries Dunedin Grass Circle, Te Tuhi Center for the Arts, Auckland Silver Park, HSP, Christchurch Park, Public Art Lightbox Installation, Bledisloe Walkway, Auckland City
2009 Richard Orjis, Starkwhite Gallery, Auckland
2008 little black flower grow, in the sky, Luis Adelantado, Valencia, Spain
YES, Te Tuhi Centre for Arts, Auckland, Richard Orjis, Starkwhite, Auckland Landslide, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui
Welcome to the Jungle, The Physic Room, Christchurch
2007 My Empire of Dirt: Selected works on paper, Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland,
2006 Dep_art_ment, Auckland
2005 Dep_art_ment, Auckland
2004 Richard Orjis, Galeria Luis Adelantado, Valencia, Spain
Richard Orjis, Galeria Llucia Homs, Barcelona, Spain
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010 The Marvelous, Bartley & Company, Wellington
MADRIDFOTO, Galeria Luis Adelantado, Palacio de Deportes de la Comunicad, Madrid, Spain
PUTIPUTI: The flower in Contemporary Art, Hasting City Art Gallery, Hastings Group Show, Anna Bibby, Auckland Floriferous, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui
2009 The Enchanted Garden, Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki
Recent: Ten Contemporary NZ Photographers, Tauranga Art Gallery
Animal Farm: 4 Legs Good, Sargeant Gallery, Whanganui
Flora: Growth Between Neighbours, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
Seen this Century, Judith Anderson Gallery, Hastings
2008 little black flower grow, in the sky, Luis Adelantado, Valencia, Spain*
The Maui Destiny, The Suter Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson
2007 Vice, Luis Adelantado, Miami, USA
Picnics and Revolutions, Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland
Richard Orjis / Todd Stratton, Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland
Art is 4 Lovers, Butterfly Net, Auckland
Jewellery out of Context: an exhibition of New Zealand artists / curated by Dr Carole Sheperd and Peer Deckers, Object Space, Auckland
Fat of the Land, Creative New Zealand, Auckland
Asian at the Wheel, Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, Auckland
2006 The New Situationists, City Gallery, Wellington
The New Situationists, Canary Gallery, Auckland
The Orchid Show, Mount Street, Auckland
Arquivar Tormentas, Centro Galego De Arte Contemporanea, Santiago, Spain
Summer Exhibition, Roger Williams Contemporary, Auckland
2005 Me, Me, Me, Room 103, Auckland
Bring Your Caddy, Stanbeth House, Auckland
2003 In Faccia Al Mondo ‘Contemporary Portraits in Photography’, The Museum of Contemporary Art of Villa Croce, Genoa, Italy
RICHARD ORJIS
B. 1979, lives Auckland
Gorse&Orchids(2007)
“His work is designed to illustrate non-existent, shadowy social groups. In his own words: ‘I create ritualistic or cult-like imagery that deals with the conflict between humans and nature, nature being defined as environments, both physical and psychological, that are not created or controlled by humans. While natural landscapes can be sublime in their beauty, they are also places that can be dangerous, hostile and destructive. Furthermore, the night offers an historical stage for rituals to take place, as the blackness gives a sense of mystery and ambiguity that is consistent throughout my work.”1
“I can see that it might seem like I’m working with lots of different things, but everything I do comes from the same place and is normally about the same concerns. For me, the work revolves around four main intersecting and fluid connections, that of nature, cult, myth and the gothic.
Nature can be seen as beautiful and pure, and intrinsically good, but also as dangerous and destructive, a spectacle of the devourers and the devoured. This tense relationship of attraction and repulsion feeds into my practice. I explore notions of beauty laced with an undercurrent of ugliness, or vice versa.”2
“My work sits itself within the framework of the gothic. Just as society seeks to sanitize nature, many human emotions are repressed in the on going process of civilisation. The gothic sensibility explores this dark underbelly, seeking to access the sublime through dark beauty, melancholy, lust, death fear and violence.
I seek to connect contemporary culture with antiquity, the gothic psych surfaces in many different forms in art and culture throughout history. The gothic is present in contemporary culture in the form of heavy metal music, video games, horror and science fiction movies.”3
Richard Orjis was born in Whanganui in 1979, and lives and works in Auckland. He is a multimedia artist, utilising photography, paint, sculpture and performance. Orjis completed his Master of Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 2006 having previously earned a BVA in 2001 at Auckland University of Technology. He has exhibited extensively, including exhibitions in New York, Basel, Miami, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and Auckland
1. Warwick Brown, Seen This Century, Godwit, 2009 pg 304
2. Jason Lingard, ‘Richard Orjis’, None Magazine, 2007
3. Ibid
Angst, RARE, New York, USA
Group Show, Galeria Luis Adelantado, Valencia, Spain
COLLECTIONS
The Real Arts Road Show
The Jenny Gibbs Collection, Auckland
The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, Madrid, Spain
The Film Archive, Wellington
The University of Auckland Collection, Auckland
Wallace Trust Collection, Auckland
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2009 Brown, Warwick,-‘Seen This Century: 100 Contemporary New Zealand Artists’, Godwit, Random House, 2009, pp. 304–307
Real Art Trust Staff, - ‘Real Art Roadshow: The Book’, Real Art Charitable Trust, 2009, pp. 162–163
Serrat, Carlos, ‘Contemporary Paganism’, The Creator Studio’, # 11 Rituals, April 2008, pp. 4–13
2008 Orjis, Richard – ‘Coal Choir’, No Magazine, Issue 2 2008, pp. 61–69
McNaughton, Harry, ‘Richard Orjis’ , No. Magazine, Issue 1, March 2008, pp. 18–19
Pickens, Robyn,- ‘Expressions of Contradictions’, The Press, Christchurch, Wednesday, April 16, 2008, p.D5
2007 Battersby, Shandelle, -‘Richard Orjis, Artists and Mud Fan’, Time Out, The New Zealand Herald, May 17–23, 2007, p. 5
Chang, Lulu, - ‘The Garden of Unearthly Delight’, Soma, Volume 21.4, May/June 2007,p. 30
Coney, Hamish, -‘Future Schlock: An old fogey looks at the work of today’s yoof’, Ideolog, #7, January – February 2007, p. 95 or http://idealog.co.nz/magazine/January-February2007/workshop/future-schlock
‘Gallery’, Black, No 7, Summer 2007/08, p. 176 (Artists Page) Hall, Oliver, - ‘International Achiever’, Express, 25 April – 1 May 2007, pp. 10–11 Hamilton, Summer, - ‘Auckland Art Fair 07’, KiaOra, May 2007, p72
Laird, Tessa, -‘Secrets of the Soil: Richard Orjis and his Empire of Dirt’, White Fungus, Issue 8, 2007, pp. 34–41
Lingard, Jason, - ‘Richard Orjis’, Nothing Magazine, Issue 11 2007 http://www.nothingmag.com/_issue11/index.html
Mudie, Ella, -‘ The Dark side: Richard Orjis’, Dazed and Confused Aus/NZ, Volume 1 Issue 3 2007, p. 137
2006 Orjis, Richard, - ‘Momento Mori’, New Zealand Home & Entertaining, April/May 2006, pp. 62–69 2005 Williams, Melinda, - ‘Hip to be square’, Sunday Life and View, Herald on Sunday, April 3–9, 2005, pp. 6–8
2004 Capdevilla, Marta, - ‘Up-State’ , Suite, 29, October 2004, p. 64 Mogutin, Slava, -‘Anthony et Richard’, TETU, No 88, April 2004, p. 34-35 Tabron, Delaney, - ‘Richard Orjis’, Pavement, Summer 2004/2005, Issue 66, p. 43
Ventur, Conrad, -‘NYC Photographers’, Useless Magazine, Vol 1 No 1, Fall/Winter 2004, p. 46
2003 Arevalo, Pilar, - ‘Narcissist, artist or just taking the piss?’, Oyster, Issue 43, December/January 2003, pp. 48–51
Northcross, Wayne, - ‘ Razzle-Basel’, Instinct, Vol 6 Issue 2, February 2003, p. 16
Suau, Christina, - ‘Richard Orjis’, ELLE, Spain, No. 197, February, 2003, p. 72
Olveira, Manuel, - ‘A Story with a viewpoint’, Arquivar Tormentas, Centro Galego De Arte Contemporanea, Santiago, Spain, pp. 27–31
