The architecture of place, the fall of light and shadow sit at the centre of all works in Woodland. In Maughan’s critically acclaimed trademark manner each work is an amalgam of statement and suggestion. His is an invented world delivered from the artist’s studio but one that is based totally on the known and real.

Maughan uses the ‘weighting’ of different techniques in different works – in Bannockburn, Koromiko and Titoki Road he introduces the sky through the filigree of trees. In Matuku and Stuart Road he uses dramatic impasto contrasts. Whereas in Omaio, Ayrlies and Greenhough it is the abundance, heightened palette and shape distinctions which propel the intense experiences of each work.

In Hollard and Tainui Avenue Maughan uses shape repetition, a gradual sliding pictorial depth and the tactility of expressionism to bring the viewer into the ever-delightful process of a carefully constructed journey in these gardens. He is using the viewer’s memory, the commanding sensations of stopping and starting as significant components in the ‘delivery’ and experience of each work. Although these are unmistakably studio paintings and somewhat akin to fantasy landscapes in their inventiveness, it is ultimately the intense, underscored naturalism in each of these paintings that triumphs above all else.