Contemporary Figurative

Nick Cuthell Nifah

22.03.23 — 15.04.23 Contemporary Figurative

Contemporary Figurative 22.03.23 — 15.04.23 Monday to Friday | 10am — 5pm Saturday | 11am — 3pm Mark Hutchins-Pond Specialist, Art mark@webbs.co.nz +64 4 555 6011 Karen Rigby Business Manager karen@webbs.co.nz +64 4 555 6011 23 Marion Street Te Aro Wellington 6011 webbs.co.nz

Introduction

Figurative painting is a discipline with deep traditions.

While it reached new heights during the Renaissance era (14th – 17th centuries), it has been an integral aspect of art for millennia. The documented origins of figurative painting predate agricultural civilisation; the Lascaux cave paintings, among the earliest known examples of European figurative art, date back at least 17,000 years.

Further to this, the human figure has remained central to art since classical antiquity. For all of its rich history, it remains a vital discipline, filled with great possibilities for contemporary painters.

Contemporary Figurative brings together the work of four artists – Nick Cuthell, Loren Marks, Jennifer Mason, and Garth Steeper. Curator Dr Julian McKinnon states, “Each of these four artists has a unique approach to painting the human figure. They all have different backgrounds, techniques, and specific focusses. What shines through the respective practices of these artists, is that the human form remains a compelling and vital subject within contemporary painting.”

Contemporary Figurative will open on Wednesday 22 March, with an evening event from 6-8pm. The opening night will include a discussion between the curator and artists.

All works are available to purchase.

Contemporary Figurative runs from Wednesday 22 March through to Saturday 15 April.

For further information, please contact our specialist team.

Nick Cuthell

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Nick Cuthell Nifah 2023 oil on board 420 × 300mm price $2,250

Nick Cuthell is a New Zealand born, London-based artist. He is a highly trained portrait painter, having studied in Italy, New York, and London. Cuthell’s work has been exhibited extensively in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the world. He has received a number of notable commissions, including painting cast members of The Hobbit film series and an international touring production of Waiting for Godot, painting the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s departing Governor Dr Alan Bollard in 2012, and a portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In his work for Contemporary Figurative, Cuthell has used his skill set to create a dazzling and evocative body of work, capturing his subjects in dynamic and engaging poses. These paintings draw

on the artist’s consummate abilities in the field of portraiture, while experimenting with different techniques and brushwork. In the approach Cuthell has taken with these works, he has created a fresh and inventive take on a deeply traditional art form.

Cuthell has created a new body of work for Contemporary Figurative, with the majority of the works created in 2023. The artist has also included his stunning 2018 portrait of the late, great Georgina Beyer as a tribute to the trailblazing political icon who recently passed away. This portrait was created while Beyer was in London preparing to deliver her addresses to the Oxford Union and the Cambridge Union.

It beautifully captures the elegance, fierce bravery, and sharp sense of wit Beyer was widely renowned for.

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Nick Cuthell Sharon 2023 oil on canvas 710 × 560mm price $8,500

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Nick Cuthell Georgina Beyer MNZM JP 2018 oil on canvas 910 × 910mm price $14,550

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Nick Cuthell Sketch of Carla 2023 oil on board 350 × 250mm price $1,750

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Nick Cuthell Francis 2023 oil on canvas 710 × 910mm price $8,500

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Nick Cuthell Francis 2023 oil on board 300 × 210mm price $1,750

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Nick Cuthell Nathan 2023 oil on canvas 610 × 400mm price $4,500

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Nick Cuthell Sharon 2023 oil on canvas 810 × 460mm price $9,500

Loren Marks

Loren Marks creates her work from a studio in an industrial setting on the Te Atatū peninsula in Tāmaki Makaurau. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design in 2013, and she has worked as a print and textile designer in the fashion industry. This background in textiles complements her knowledge of art, adding to her sense of colour and composition. Her paintings push representation of the human figure to the point of breakdown, almost reading as abstract or pattern-oriented artworks.

Marks has produced a new body of work for Contemporary Figurative.

These paintings draw inspiration from a range of sources, including Roman wall painting. Marks encountered exquisite frescoes while travelling in Greece and Italy, and this point of reference informs her approach to painting. Starting from

a base of thin paint layers of washes, Marks engages in a intuitive painting process, layering paint and allowing images to emerge. In a process she likens to archaeological digging, she uses turpentine-soaked brushes to ‘excavate’ the canvas, removing areas of paint.

The result is a stunning painterly effect that blurs the lines between figurative painting and gestural abstraction.

Adieu is a fascinating example of the artist’s work. Two faces can be clearly seen in the composition, one in profile and the other in a three-quarter view. Other planes of colour could be read as a torso and legs, though other readings are also possible. The figures are enveloped in gestural whorls of paint. In Adieu, and throughout this body of work, Marks’ astute command of colour and composition is clearly evident.

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Loren Marks In Return 2023 oil on canvas 1200 x 1500 mm price $8,250

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Loren Marks Adieu 2023 oil on canvas 850 x 700mm price $4,250

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Loren Marks Splendour 2023 oil on canvas 650 x 650mm price $3,500

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Loren Marks After Ten 2023 oil on canvas 350 x 400mm price $1,500

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Loren Marks Once was 2023 oil on canvas 650 x 650mm price $3,500

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Loren Marks There by now 2023 oil on canvas 1200 x 1500mm price $8,250

Jennifer Mason

Jennifer Mason is dedicated to exploring the figure through painting. She has worked with a number of models to create highly refined and tightly composed works, which present contemplative, reclining figures. Mason’s work connects with a broad range of historic influences, including Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age sources, though it subtly speaks to contemporary cultural themes. Mason’s subjects are all female, and are all painted nude, yet they challenge the culturally omnipresent objectifying gaze that so many images of nude women cater to.

Mason’s work is meticulously crafted, comprised of numerous layers of paint with subtle chromatic gradients.

Her palette is light and constrained; rather than a broad spectrum of lights and darks, they sit within a neatly bracketed tonal range. These works take long hours to produce. The results are achieved through a delicate process of layering, using tiny brushes to build up the surfaces. Mason developed this unique painting process through the use of watercolour when she first came to painting. As she moved into working with oil paint, she adapted techniques from watercolour – using thin translucent layering, rather than the thick impasto application often seen in oil painting.

Mason cites 15th century Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden and 19th century French academic painter WilliamAdolphe Bouguereau as notable influences. In particular, she is drawn to the use of colour, light, and subtle tonal gradients in their work, and that seen in other sources of religious art.

Mason studied towards the MFA program at Glasgow School of Art (2015), completed Post-Graduate studies at the State University of New York (2004), and holds a Post Graduate Diploma and a Bachelor’s degree from Elam School of Fine Arts, along with a Bachelor of Arts in Women’s Studies from the University of Auckland. Jennifer Mason’s work is represented by Melanie Roger Gallery in Auckland.

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Jennifer Mason Abigail’s Neck 2022 acrylic on board 300 x 380mm price $3,500

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Jennifer Mason Horizon #1 2023 oil on linen 750 x 1000mm price $11,500

Jennifer Mason’s work appears courtesy of the artist and Melanie Roger Gallery

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Jennifer Mason Abigail on Elbows 2022 oil on aluminium 655 × 850mm price $8,500

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Jennifer Mason Abigail Olympia 2022 oil on board 330 × 433mm price $3,500

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Jennifer Mason Figure with Knees Up 2019 oil on board 420 × 540mm price $4,500

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Jennifer Mason Four Figures 2021 oil on board 1170 × 1730mm price $16,000

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Jennifer Mason Bathsheba Supine with Knees Up 2022 oil on board 765 x 1135mm Jennifer Mason’s work appears courtesy of the artist and Melanie Roger Gallery price $12,000

Garth Steeper

Over the past two decades, Garth Steeper has developed a unique approach to representational painting. His artworks feature contrasting approaches to technique – at times working in heavy impasto, at others using layers of thin glazing. He graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2003, and in the years since has exhibited regularly. His work often explores themes of New Zealand’s early colonial history, featuring scenes from whaling settlements and logging camps in native forests. A painter of contrasts, Steeper also creates works of homage, recontextualising the work of historical artists in his own style. A consistent feature of his paintings is a striking chiaroscuro palette – making use of dramatic contrast between light and dark.

In the body of work presented in Contemporary Figurative, Steeper has drawn from two historic sources to create highly compelling works of homage. Yet, he explores these historical points of reference through a contemporary lens, with brushwork and painting approach that is very much of the present. Three of his works present aspects of Michelangelo’s David, one of the most widely-celebrated Renaissance masterpieces. Another reworks a section of French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa. This reimagining of historic artworks is a form or artistic reinvention practiced by countless artists throughout history. It was notably a feature of the work of New Zealand painter Tony Fomison, who Steeper cites as a significant influence. In this way, these works – or ‘passages of paint’, as the artist has styled them – are works of double-layered homage. Steeper’s painting A Kauri Gum Worker, painted in 2022, is unique in this selection, in that it stems from the artist’s individual visual repertoire and engagement with the activities of early European settlers in Aotearoa.

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Garth Steeper Study after a section of Gerricault’s Raft of the Medusa 2023 oil on linen 1670 × 2130mm price $10,500

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Garth Steeper David 2023 oil on canvas 850 × 1150mm price $4,250

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Garth Steeper A Kauri Gum Worker 2022 oil on linen 650 x 500mm price $3,750

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Garth Steeper David’s Foot 2023 oil on canvas 1010 x 760mm price $4,250

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Garth Steeper David’s Hand 2020 oil on canvas 1500 x 1000mm price $6,500

Mark Hutchins-Pond Specialist, Art +64 22 095 5610 mark@webbs.co.nz

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Karen Rigby Business Manager +64 22 344 5610 karen@webbs.co.nz

wellington 23 Marion Street Te Aro Wellington, 6011