Exhibition Nailed

Phew, another solo exhibition under my belt. Some snaps pre-crowd! Yes, there was a crowd. Fantastic Auckland, everyone so social and supportive. Wonderful Rex and Jennifer and Kim doing such a great job. Great to trust that all the decisions made around the exhibition are right. Beautiful hanging decisions from Rex, really spacious and all the right work dialoging with each other.

Exhibition openings are a great opportunity to get feedback and rave...what does it all mean, how and why, lots of 'how do you do that?'. It helps me too to explain from scratch, how did I come to this kind of work? I came to this because I have a whole lot of visual and conceptual agendas that I need to fulfill. I want paintings to look like they are inevitable, that they exist because they have to exist. They must not look contrived, but effortless and spontaneous. They are not effortless! They are such hard work, but that is the fun, to make them look like they made themselves. It's walking (or dancing) the line between randomness and systems that I am really interested in, achieving unity and variety, and opening up as much ambiguity as possible, abstract, landscape, textile, wind, networking, weaving... Counting layers last night. Minimum 6 complete layers of paint, sometimes 12.

Hope people get to see the work in the flesh. There is no substitute for scale, surface quality, light, pristine white walls and a space to engage in a receptive solitary fashion to the pleasure of paint.

There and back. Oh, how can any art form possibly compete with an aerial perspective. Let us never take this for granted. Wow, majestic beauty, utter wonder, stunning Aotearoa.

For more exhibition opening shots click here: Auckland Arts Diary

---