ARTS + CULTURE @ OREXART Peter James Smith - Catchlight 26 September - 14 October
Catchlight is defined as the highlight that can appear in a portrait subject’s eye. It is generally a desirable thing because it enlivens a subject; it is a kernel, a glint at the heart of human-to-human communication. Light is that elusive state of particles and waves that evade art history’s capture. TJ McNamara has described Peter James Smith as having a “...remarkably active mind.” Smith paints eloquently in two abstract languages that are usually poles apart mathematics and art. The arresting thing about his landscapes is his ability to elegantly combine his Romantic style of painting with scientific dialect. Realistic scenes sit with strong mark making and text as the imagery is juxtaposed with scientific observations, poetic and historical references as handwriting. “My current practice embraces the traditional painting approaches of oil on linen in a realist style that is at once traditional and contemporary: traditional, in the sense of my fertile interest in the 19th Century High German Romantic paintings of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) or the American Luminists such as Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900); contemporary, in my embrace of contemporaneity - the linking of images and texts from different times, cultures, knowledge systems, histories and geographic locations - to a painted constellation in the present.” Peter James Smith, 2016 Smith’s paintings discuss the part imagery and objects play in the development of memory and the recall of history. His works acknowledge the aspiration for progress brought forth by scientific invention and investigation - while allowing room for the imagination, reminiscence and admiration. Born in Paparoa, New Zealand in 1954, Peter James Smith now paints full time, holding solo and group exhibitions each year. Currently based in Melbourne, he has worked in both New Zealand and Australia since the mid 1970s. His practice is built from the traditional painting medium of oil on linen. He is widely published as a mathematician and holds the degrees BSc (Hons), MSc, MStats, PhD with a Master of Fine Art in Painting. He was Professor of Mathematics and Art at RMIT University, Melbourne, where he was Head of the School of Creative Media (photography, creative writing, screenwriting, multimedia, music, sound, digital art) from 2002 to 2008. Please contact rex@orexart.co.nz for details. F PN OREXART, 15 Putiki Street, Arch Hill, T: 09 378 0588, www.orexart.co.nz
Georgie Malyon, Ethereal Flora
@ GREY
Immersed In Flowers - Georgie Malyon 24 October - 4 November Opening: 24 October, 5pm - 7pm With this new series of works ‘Immersed in Flowers’, floral artist Georgie Malyon again draws on her ongoing curiosity and fascination with floristry and the occult. The works involve producing the artifice of billowing clouds of smoke in a carefully controlled environment, that entwine with her first love, flowers. The symbolism of smoke effortlessly crosses the boundaries of every belief system from Pagan ritual to Christian mass. It allows us to imagine ascendance into mystical realms, beyond the constructs of matter, time and human understanding. Channelled through delicate clouds that dissipate into the ether, smoke infers the journey of the immortal soul as it echoes our transition from matter into spirit. Flowers immerse within our human consciousness as a means to celebrate or commiserate with the trials and tribulations of human experience, and as a final gesture to send off the dead into the afterlife. Ultimately, flowers are an enduring symbol of human mortality or memento mori - echoing the ever present, life/death cycle. PN Please contact here@thegreyplace.nz for details. F
HukaFalls & The Legend Of The Takitimu Canoe, oil 600x1800mm
106 PONSONBY NEWS+ October 2017
GREY, 37 Scanlan Street, T: 021 98 77 66, www.thegreyplace.nz
PUBLISHED FIRST FRIDAY EACH MONTH (except January)