Sad news

Prominent Auckland painter Peter Siddell has a terminal illness. Stuff has an article:

"A lot of my painting relates back to childhood memories," he adds, "that, and a lot of it are about places I know, certainly the vistas of Victorian villas and volcanic hills are just the sort of stereotype of Auckland that I remember from my childhood."
His paintings are noted for their lack of human interference no telephone poles, cars, pollution or graffiti mar his work. His art is a monument to the memories of his childhood, featuring significant images held by a young and inquisitive mind.

I really like what he says about painting:

Siddell sees painting as "an exercise in controlled disappointment you start off at the beginning with a brilliant idea and think `oh, this is going to be a great painting', but as soon as you make a few marks on the canvas then you find that what is planned is going to be affected by the initial brushstrokes and the painting ends up very different from its original conception.

Read the whole article here.

And you can enjoy a selection of Peter Siddell's paintings here. Many of the paintings in his image gallery are accompanied by his own illuminating commentary.

Cow Portraits

I've only ever taken one portrait of cattle, and this is it:



This was taken near Ahaura, on the West Coast. They obviously don't get a lot of visitors.

English painter Sue Moffitt has forged an entire career out of portraits of cows, and they are just amazing! Look at this. Or this. Who would have thought you could get so much personality into a picture of a cow? You can check out Sue Moffitt's whole portfolio here.

Image copyright Grace Dalley. All rights reserved.

New Zealand's Favourite Artists

This is a wonderful compendium of contemporary best-selling New Zealand painters. It seems to be out of print, but you can download it here. It's a very interesting collection, full of surprises: lots of brilliant artists I'd never heard of. Among my favourites were Barry Ross Smith's witty beach scenes and farm scenes; Jane Puckey's striking botanical pictures; Phillip Maxwell's narrative still lifes; Susan Webb's painterly landscapes; Neil Driver's serene landscape/interiors; and Nigel Wilson's shimmering, dreamlike landscapes.

If you think the work of popular painters would be all in the same style or have similar subject matter, you'd be wrong! What a diverse group. Have a look.

Art in the 'Hood

The building that used to be the local corner shop is now a painter's studio. There are giant, photorealist paintings in the window. They're of children's toys which look familiar but somehow altered, somehow disquieting. Behind the display, but still visible, is a partly-finished work still being painted. If you go at the right time, you can see the painter working; and if he's not there working you can go around the back and knock on the door. I don't know what it's like for him working in a fishbowl, but it's pretty interesting for the rest of us. He is David Woodings, and his website is here.

Grant Hanna

I'd never heard of this witty New Zealand surrealist painter before I stumbled upon his I Dream of Fish Too, at Ferner Galleries. Other favourites of mine include 4 Cows and a Sheep, 3 White Coats and an Un-ion, and Another Day Closer to Death.

I really like the way his landscapes are both so recognisable and so altered.

Sam Mahon

I didn't know Sam Mahon was a painter as well as a sculptor, but the Christchurch City Art Galley has this amazing example, and this too. I'm sure his upcoming show at CoCA's Mair Gallery will be well worth seeing.

And kudos to the City Gallery for putting their permanent collection online. It's a great resource, and it's part of what public galleries are for.

My secret addiction

Astrona is full of awesome pictures of imaginary planets.

Jingle Jangle Morning

Bill Hammond's huge new show at Christchurch's City Gallery is a knockout. It shows the development of his personal iconography of bird-headed figures, his love of repeat patterns, his transcribing of musical forms into painting, and his dream-like primeval landscapes. I love the freedom of his drawing and compositions, and dripping, streaky applications of paint, and the stunning effects he gets from an almost monochromatic palette. Go see it if you can.

Rorscharch would be pleased

Bill Flynn and Samantha Keely Smith are two artists who work with paint. Their work isn't figurative, but it isn't quite abstract either...the paint is applied with careful randomness: the pigment runs and pools and separates, creating organic-looking works which are formless but evocative.

Shane Bradford

Shane Bradford's artistic practice is somewhere between painting and sculpture. He layers objects with paint by dipping them in bright rainbow hues, and the result is a paradoxical confection: his toy planes, cars and soldiers look almost good enough to eat...and his cooking utensils, dipped in the same colours, look poisonous. He performs a neat inversion: unpalatable subjects are made harmless and playful, and safe domestic subjects are made toxic. One, he seems to suggest, is a consequence of the other.

Bradford won this year's Celeste Art Prize, awarded "to promote painting in its widest sense", and his entry, "Moths", is certainly an exceptional work: his rainbow-coloured planes and soldiers are attached to darts which, stuck in the wall, appear to have been attracted to the glowing light-bulb which hangs in front of them.

Emily Allchurch

Photomontages that look like famous paintings, but with subtle differences. Emily Allchurch recreates landscapes that never existed, and gives them a lived-in look. Fascinating! You can see a few of her works here, and her wonderful Tower of London is here.

Sense of place

I saw Picturing the Peninsula at the Christchurch City Gallery the other day, and it was fascinating. It's a collection of paintings, drawings and photographs of Canterbury's Banks Peninsula: you'd be amazed how diverse the images are. Standouts for me were paintings from Tony Fomison and Dean Venrooy, and a photograph from Mark Adams.

I looked online for more information on Dean Venrooy's amazing paintings, and this was about all I could find.

Eye of the beholder

Banksy is an art-celebrity; his real identity is keep secret; his work sells for huge sums. However, not everyone is impressed. Cleaners this week whitewashed a work he had spraypainted on a substation.

Banksy's own website is here. You can download and print his pictures for free.

New David Hockney portrait exhibition

At the National Portrait Gallery, London. The BBC has a slideshow.

Soaring

Joanna Braithwaite's painting Bee Being, of a figure wrapped in a swarm of bees, apparently flying through the air, is one of my favourites. That picture features in a lovely article on Braithwaite in Art New Zealand magazine.

Braithwaite shares some of her themes with Australian sculptor Patricia Piccinini, whose incredible show of human-like animals, hybrid animals, and animal-like machines at the City Gallery, Wellington, early last year is still viewable online. The online presentation features audio commentary by the artist herself.

Jane Andrews

Sophisticated, witty, and extremely strange, Jane Andrews' paintings have a haunting, familiar feel, like something half-remembered from a dream.

Lots of birds

Te Papa has put out an amazing new book on extinct New Zealand birds. It is illustrated by stunning paintings by Paul Martinson, who, amazingly, is self-taught. His birds are lovingly detailed and overflowing with personality, showing plainly how much New Zealand has lost.

I see Martinson has also illustrated a smaller book on rare and threatened birds. And that he does expressive paintings as well!