Past Exhibitions
Exhibition Works
Here Comes the Volcano (1996)
How to Find a Volcano (1996)
Island Uproar (1996)
How to Find 'Black Lake' (1996)
How I Found the Mountain (1996)
The Silver River Problem (1996)
Here I Pretend to Cross an Abyss (1996)
Air Supremacy (1997)
Bat Problem (1997)
The Return of the Flower (1997)
Exhibition Text
Defending the Oasis
In these works made in 1996-1997, I began to think of my paintings as being little worlds. A world in which things happen. A painting is a world in which things seem to happen, but don’t. No accountability. An oasis.
Some people think New Zealand is a bit like this.
In the larger ovals, painted just before the toy works, I did what you do when an oasis is discovered: Find your way around, survey the terrain, lay claim and dream up some mythologies.
In the plastic toy figure works, paint and imagery have hybridised, and the normal order in painting, in which paint is trapped in images, is reversed. These little men and machines are fatefully mirred in paint, slogging it out. Paint is Defending the Oasis.
The slogan: ‘My character’s biggest problem is being in a painting by me’, first occurred to me as I made these works.
So what seems to be happening?
The usual kinds of things.
Wellesley Binding, September 2002
In these works made in 1996-1997, I began to think of my paintings as being little worlds. A world in which things happen. A painting is a world in which things seem to happen, but don’t. No accountability. An oasis.
Some people think New Zealand is a bit like this.
In the larger ovals, painted just before the toy works, I did what you do when an oasis is discovered: Find your way around, survey the terrain, lay claim and dream up some mythologies.
In the plastic toy figure works, paint and imagery have hybridised, and the normal order in painting, in which paint is trapped in images, is reversed. These little men and machines are fatefully mirred in paint, slogging it out. Paint is Defending the Oasis.
The slogan: ‘My character’s biggest problem is being in a painting by me’, first occurred to me as I made these works.
So what seems to be happening?
The usual kinds of things.
Wellesley Binding, September 2002
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