GEMS is a collation of important investment profile works by significant New Zealand artists.

Robert Ellis’s City with New Flyover (1968) from the acclaimed Motorway Series comes direct from the artist’s collection. Ralph Hotere’s Winter Solstice (1988) is an extremely rare, utterly majestic, full sized stained glass sash window work that used to hang in his Observation Point Studio.

Ann Robinson is regarded as one of the great glass artists in the world, and there can be little doubt why, as the superb Twisted Flax Pod (2010) encapsulates. Neil Dawson’s important Sweep Series explores motion and architectural shape, using shadow, scale alteration and apparent light variance (caused by reflection, viewing angle and domed shape) to dynamic effect.

Nigel Brown’s Dusky Sound (2007/08) is a significant work about Cook’s relevance to New Zealand today, incorporating the dog-like prow of the Endeavour with explicit references to New Zealand’s colonial art and exploration history. Michael Hight’s outstanding paintings of Central Otago have achieved iconic status and considerable critical attention.

Gary Waldrom, “a home-grown master of the human parade,” (1) combines surreal contrasts, the narration of dream and the particularities of place in the allegorical visual story of Girl and Horse I (2008). Garry Currin’s Landscape with Fires I (2007) also contains a narrative of real consequence, revealing pictorial attributes too numerous to list. John Walsh builds parables out of myth and the co-joined atmospheres of landscape and water. Karl Maughan achieves a timeless quality in his work, elevating the architecture of the garden to metaphors of “emotional and aesthetic pleasure.” (2)

1. David Eggleton, Art New Zealand, No 136, p. 29
2. John Daly Peoples, National Business Review, March 5 2010.