The singularity of Tony Bishop’s painterly style is matched by the insight of his social vision and persistent examination of the rural condition.

Bishop locates an unstable world, built of folly and failed endeavour. Junk Man (2008) examines the chaos of an indiscriminate hoarder’s behaviour found in almost any town. Armed Offender Alert (2008) has a very similar pictorial construct but the menace of what is about to happen overwhelms what must have already occurred. Before the Storm (2008) uses the contrast of innocence and images of threat to destabilise the rhythms built. Dog Fancier (2008), Haymaking (2008) and Tractor Fanatic (2008) examine the oddities of personality and private interest, just as much as revealing Bishop to be celebrating repetitious pattern.

The Green Hills of Home (2008) is a magnificent visual pun. Minnie Dean (2008), that well-known Southland murderer, stands guardian to a cottage with garden plots bordered like graves. Sawmill Village (2008) is a poem of loss in which the last trees are shown leaving town.

Life, the indices of industry and time – established in Bishop’s metaphor of the train – passes by the idyllic Seaside Village (2008) and is flagged by the Takitimu Train (2008).

At first these paintings may appear simple, naive even, but in them are contained major debates concerning the environment and farming use, personality and behaviour, hope and despair.