MIKE PETRE

Mike Petre

New Works

22 September - 17 October 2012

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

milford galleries queenstown

9A Earl Street (03) 442 6896 qtown@milfordgalleries.co.nz

1. Field Study 230 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on canvas, stretcher: 1302 x 1100 x 37 mm

2. Field Study 232 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on canvas, stretcher: 1115 x 1452 x 37 mm

3. Field Study 231 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on canvas, stretcher: 1115 x 1452 x 37 mm

4. Field Study 228 (2012) oil on canvas, stretcher: 918 x 918 x 35 mm

5. Field Study 229 (2012) oil on canvas, stretcher: 1103 x 1300 x 37 mm

6. Field Study 207 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 418 x 358 mm

7. Field Study 208 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 418 x 358 mm

8. Field Study 209 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper, frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 358 x 418 mm

9. Field Study 213 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 418 x 358 mm

10. Field Study 210 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 358 x 418 mm

11. Field Study 211 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper, frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 358 x 418 mm

12. Field Study 216 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 418 x 358 mm

13. Field Study 217 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 418 x 358 mm

14. Field Study 215 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper, frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 358 x 418 mm

15. Field Study 220 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 418 x 358 mm

16. Field Study 218 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 358 x 418 mm

17. Field Study 219 (2012) ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper, frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 418 x 358 mm

Mike Petre’s black and white paintings of cattle have achieved iconic status in NZ art. He uses implication, understatement and paraphrase as fundamental stylistic tools. In these works, the backgrounds have been removed and the cattle beasts come to float in unspecified space. He also achieves the rare and remarkable pictorial quality of the animals appearing both solid and liquid at the same time. He presents volume and body mass, the variable structure of the head and disposition with the authority of an insider; he knows these animals completely.

There is also more than an echo in these works of the (politicised) gaze of modern portraiture but the statements and hints of eye contact occur from deep within the shadowed eye sockets. This direct challenge to the viewer adds an unsettling aspect into the viewing relationship and significantly broadens the visceral experience. These are no ordinary images of cattle – these are beasts bred to die, a commodity farmed for our needs, and we know this.

Petre builds in numerous allusions to farming, such as with the dripping lines strongly suggesting carcasses hanging. He uses repetition as a device to present the animals as objects for scrutiny – we compare one to the other and appraise the differences.

In every black and white work the landscape exists only in our minds. In Field Study 228 and Field Study 229 he alters the dynamic by adding a green background and using a palette knife. This completely different technique of building an impasto surface across the entire work unites the animals and the landscape, and in this way presents them as completely entwined, literally as one and the same.

EXHIBITION PRICELIST 1

Field Study 230 (2012)

8,500

2

Field Study 232 (2012)

10,000

3

Field Study 231 (2012)

10,000

4

Field Study 228 (2012)

6,000

5

Field Study 229 (2012)

8,500

6

Field Study 207 (2012)

3,000

7

Field Study 208 (2012)

3,000

8

Field Study 209 (2012)

3,000

9

Field Study 213 (2012)

3,000

10

Field Study 210 (2012)

3,000

11

Field Study 211 (2012)

3,000

12

Field Study 216 (2012)

3,000

13

Field Study 217 (2012)

3,000

14

Field Study 215 (2012)

3,000

15

Field Study 220 (2012)

3,000

16

Field Study 218 (2012)

3,000

17

Field Study 219 (2012)

3,000

All prices are NZD and include GST; Prices are current at the time of the exhibition

MIKE PETRE b. 1964, lives Matakana

Field Study 193 (2011)

“My work is a personal response to memory and experiences associated with spending a large part of my life immersed in rural environments. My paintings are not an attempt to elevate, idealise or romanticise the rural, but rather a means of exploring the notion of what it is, and what it means to be a ‘local’, and developing a visual language to convey this. New Zealand has a rich and varied history of landscape painting yet I feel little has been attempted within the visual arts to explore issues of localised rural experience and landscape. Historically New Zealand landscape painting depicts ‘visiting the landscape’ with all its implied transferral of ‘Urban Experience’, - a romanticising experience.” (1) In the ‘field study’ series of works the animals have become the object of intense scrutiny. The background has been removed, “with the object becoming a landscape within themselves.” With gallery installation, the viewer is placed within the landscape and forced into “a degree of scrutiny many would be unfamiliar (if not uncomfortable) with… the reality of raising animals for slaughter and viewing the land for production necessitates objectification. My work is an attempt to capture this objectification, as well as negotiate ‘identity’ within the New Zealand landscape.” (2) The cattle paintings appear deceptively simple. “The images are actually built up through a sequence of processes.” In the ‘Field Study’ series the oil adds “to the dripped and drawn effect of the ink to give a sense of the wetness of living skin, a challenging immediacy. …The factual, unromantic approach to beef farming (the images in the ‘Steer’ series being marked with crayon as for meat-cuts or production lots) brings a confrontational edge to the vision of our landscape as picturesque or pastoral.” (3) "When most of us look at cattle we interpret their returning gaze as gentle curiosity. Petre sees the eye contact as more of a challenge, an awareness of their fate and a "Bring it on" belligerent bravado by animals that inherently know they are born already defeated." (4) Born Piopio, New Zealand 1964. Bachelor of Agriculture (Management), Massey University, Palmerston North, 1986. Bachelor of Design, Carrington Polytechnic, 1994. Raised on a sheep and beef farm in Piopio (King Country). Worked on farms in New Zealand before studying for an agriculture degree and in the UK and Israel afterwards.

Following his graduation from design studies, Petre was a founder member of Sturdee studios and in 1998 of Indicator studios. He began exhibiting via the studios in 1995 and since 1997 has exhibited in dealer galleries in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin. He has been a finalist in the three Wallace Awards he has entered (1998, 1999 & 2001) and in 2001 was featured in episode 4 of TVNZ’s ‘The Big Art Trip’.

1. Artist’s Statement, 2002.

2. ibid.

3. Helen Watson White, ‘Field work’, Sunday Star Times, 16 June 2002.

4. BMW Magazine, Autumn 2008.

Mike Petre 2012 CV P a g e |1

milford galleries queenstown

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

MIKE PETRE b. 1964, lives Matakana EDUCATION 1994 1985

Bachelor of Design 3D, Carrington Polytechnic Bachelor of Agriculture (Management), Massey University

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012 2010 2009 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000

New Works, milford galleries queenstown New Works, milford galleries queenstown New Works, milford galleries auckland New Works, McPherson Gallery, Auckland New Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin McPherson Gallery, Auckland Mahurangi Gallery, Mahurangi Estate New Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin New Works, McPherson Gallery, Auckland Field Study, Milford Galleries Dunedin McPherson Gallery, Auckland McPherson Gallery, Auckland

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012

2011

2010 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004

2003 2002 2001

2000 1999

1998

Significant Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin Small Works, milford galleries queenstown The Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries queenstown The Earl Street Journal, milford galleries queenstown Spring Catalogue, milford galleries queenstown The Review, milford galleries queenstown The Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries queenstown The Earl Street Journal, milford galleries queenstown The Review, milford galleries queenstown Spring Catalogue, milford galleries queenstown The Mahurangi Group, Matakana The Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries queenstown Dawson, Petre, Arnold – Recent Works, milford galleries queenstown The Taranaki Gate, Percy Thomson Gallery, Stratford, Taranaki The Mahurangi Group, Villa Tamahunga, Matakana The Mahurangi Group, Puhoi A & P Show: Art Goes Country, Christchurch Art Gallery The Mahurangi Group, Mahurangi Estate, Warkworth George Perry Gallery, Tauranga Menagerie, North Shore Community Art Centre, North Shore From the River to the Sea, The Mahurangi Group, Puhoi Indicator Studio Group Show, Auckland McPherson Gallery Group Show, Auckland Bowen Gallery Group Show Wallace Art Awards Finalist Touring Exhibition Indicator Studio Group Show McPherson Gallery ‘100 x 100’ Group Show, Auckland Indicator Studio Group Show, Auckland Wallace Art Awards Finalist 100 x 100 Group Show, Drawings Gallery, Auckland Choice, McPherson Gallery, Auckland 100 x 100 Group Show, Drawings Gallery, Auckland Indicator, Studio Group Show Wallace Art Awards Finalist

Mike Petre 2012 CV P a g e |2

milford galleries queenstown

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

1997

100 x 100 Group Show, Drawings Gallery, Auckland Sturdee Studio Group Show Sturdee Studio Group Show Sturdee Studio Group Show

1996 1995

AWARDS 2004 Finalist Art Waikato National Art Award 2003 Finalist Art Waikato National Art Award 2002 Finalist Art Waikato National Art Award 2001-2002 Finalist and Touring Show Wallace Art Awards 1998 Finalist Wallace Art Awards 1996 Finalist Wallace Art Awards

COLLECTIONS Wallace Trust Zealandia (Terry Stringer)

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2009 2008 2007

2006 2005 2004

2003 2002

2001 2000

Sunday Star Times, Sunday Magazine, January 2009 NZ Life and Leisure, Issue 19, 2008 BMW Magazine, Feature Article, Autumn 2008 New Zealand Herald, November 2007 New Zealand Herald, September 2007 NZ Lawyer, March, 2006 Otago Daily Times, March, 2006 Otago Daily Times, July 2006 New Zealand Herald, August, 2005 Bay of Plenty Times, November 2004 New Zealand Listener, June, 2004 Home Front, TVNZ, Channel One, July, 2004 Critic, August, 2004 Canvas, July, 2003 Art News NZ, Winter, 2002 The Big Art Trip, TV NZ, Episode 4, screened Sept 2001 TV1, repeated Jan 2002 Otago Daily Times, June, 2002 Sunday Star Times, June, 2002 New Zealand Herald, September, 2001 Sunday Star Times, October, 2000 New Zealand Herald, October, 2000 Metro, June, 2000, pp. 94-99

Field Study 120 (2009)

Mike Petre 2012 CV P a g e |3

milford galleries queenstown

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz