PJ SMITH

Peter James Smith Windless Bight

13 October - 7 November 2012

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

Milford Galleries Dunedin 18 Dowling Street (03) 477 7727 info@milfordhouse.co.nz

1. Windless Bight (2011), oil on linen, stretcher: 910 x 1670 mm

2. Erebus (2012), oil on linen, stretcher: 910 x 1670 mm

3. Endurance Crushed (2012), oil on linen, stretcher: 610 x 760 mm

4. Iceblink at Windless Bight (2012), oil on linen, stretcher: 910 x 1210 mm

5. Ice Passage at Winterquarters Bay (2012), oil on linen, stretcher: 910 x 1210 mm

6. Stranded Iceberg (2012), oil

on linen, stretcher: 310 x 1670 mm

7. Our Lady of the Snows (2012), oil on linen, stretcher: 910 x 1210 mm

8. Science (2012), wood, paint, size: 860 x 480 x 180 mm

9. Fracture (2012), oil on linen, stretcher: 1210 x 910 mm

10. Cross Fold (Antarctica) (2012), oil on linen, stretcher: 760 x 610 mm

11. Ephemeral (2012), oil on linen, stretcher: 610 x 760 mm

12. Scott's Last (2011), oil on linen, stretcher: 610 x 764 x 33 mm

Peter James Smith’s exhibition Windless Bight consists of a series of works have their basis in his time spent in Antarctica as an Art Fellow. Stories of the continent have been reinterpreted and retold with Smith’s evocative landscapes framed within painted pages of notebooks, maps and postcards. His immediately recognisable overlays of scientific facts and texts provide additional points of reference to the works as well as provide tangible historical context for the paintings.

Thought of as overwhelming, vast and empty, it is the human narrative of the Antarctic that Smith addresses in many of these works. Man’s physical presence is indicated by the trappings of their explorations: skeletal ships and sleds figure as ghosts of explorations past. This sense of a tangible historical ‘text’ is evidenced further by the dog-eared and folded pages upon which the images are painted; the human hand is seen in the expressive gestural brushstrokes and hand-writing of the artist.

The name of the highest mountain on the Antarctic Continent, Erebus, comes from Ancient Greek mythology and is the personification of darkness as well as being synonymous with the underworld of the dead. This fits terribly with the mountain’s recent history as the name is now intrinsically linked with the tragedy of those killed in the 1979 crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901. Smith doesn’t place the mountain in the centre of his painting, but uses the sweep of the dark, dry mountainsides and the jagged teeth of ice floes to lead the viewer’s eye to the peak. His allusion to Hesiod’s description of Erebus reinforces the sense of threat and peril underlying the work.

Smith’s landscapes possess the elements of simultaneous beauty and terror that the Romantics called the sublime, the experience of which could bring about instances of spiritual transcendence. Hints of the spiritual run through these works, manifested through religious symbols, the otherworldly glow of the midnight sun or the secular monuments that invite reflection on lives past. Smith tempers this with the rational formulae, charts and diagrams that range across the surface of his paintings, providing parameters for the viewers’ experience. The sculptural piece Science encapsulates this: the rulers that comprise Smith’s Cross pay homage to empiricism, but stand atop a box written with “Kismet” – fate.

EXHIBITION PRICELIST

1

Windless Bight (2011)

15,000

2

Erebus (2012)

15,000

3

Endurance Crushed (2012)

4

Iceblink at Windless Bight (2012)

12,500

5

Ice Passage at Winterquarters Bay (2012)

12,500

6

Stranded Iceberg (2012)

7

Our Lady of the Snows (2012)

8

Science (2012)

4,000

9

Fracture (2012)

12,500

10

Cross Fold (Antarctica) (2012)

6,000

11

Ephemeral (2012)

6,000

12

Scott's Last (2011)

6,000

6,000

7,500 12,500

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

PETER JAMES SMITH b. 1954, lives Melbourne

Windless Bight (2012)

"The first, most striking thing about Peter James Smith - the man and the work - is the dual devotion to art and science. The works are attentive to the actual visual character of particular things and there is an enthusiasm for the abstract, rigorous discipline of mathematics." (1) “My work gathers together phases of scientific endeavour by placing data, text, references and graffiti across an illusionistic visual field. The gathering of data, codes, signifiers and histories into a current woven text is a particularly post-modern stance. It provides the artist with a curator’s brief. It sits well with the scientist who creates new work by formally referencing the pioneering work of others in the field. In this sense scientists don’t ‘appropriate’, they build on the past.” (2) “Smith paints with an enviable fluency in two abstract languages – mathematics and art – each carefully presented to perform a specific role in his Socratic argument. Both languages strive for elegance, but we are used to seeing them apart, so he uses vernacular painting to seduce. Then through his arcane scientific medium he delivers a sudden virtuosity of spirit. Together, they create a crisp tension of ideas, at once charming and vigorous, with painterly abstractions of land or skyscapes beneath the overlay of words or data describing the scene, often scrawled in blackboard freehand. …Huge, bilingual abstractions loaded with the emotional charge of each language, art and science: double-barrelled depictions that simultaneously bring us closer to the moment of the event itself, incidentally consider the languages we use and take us to the edge.” (3) Peter James Smith is widely published as a mathematician and holds the degrees BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD with a Master of Fine Art in Painting. He recently retired as Professor of Mathematics and Art, and Head of the School of Creative Media (photography, creative writing, screenwriting, film and television production, video production, multimedia, music production, digital art, computer gaming) at RMIT University in Melbourne to paint and write full time. His paintings are held in many public, private and corporate collections in New Zealand, Australia and internationally. In 2009/ 10 he was a New Zealand Art Fellow in Antarctica.

1. John Armstrong, 'The Art of the Modern Sublime', Peter James Smith: Illuminated by Darkness, 2005 2. Artist Statement, 2000 3. Keith Stewart, ‘Life Science’, Listener, 2 August 1997

Peter James Smith 2012 CV P a g e |1

Milford Galleries Dunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

PETER JAMES SMITH b. 1954, lives Melbourne

EDUCATION 2002 – 2003 1984 1980 1976

MFA (Painting), RMIT University, Melbourne PhD, University of Western Australia MS, Rutgers University BSc (Hons), University of Auckland

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

2006 2005

2004 2003 2002

2001 2000 1999

1998

1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1991 1990

Windless Bight, Milford Galleries Dunedin On the Nature of Things, OREXART, Auckland Light, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, Australia Iceblink, John Leech Gallery, Auckland Nine Key Works 2002 – 2008 & Selected Sublime Echo Studies, milford galleries queenstown Histories Reprised From Art and Science, John Leech, Auckland Truth + Beauty (curated by Claire Watson), Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria, Australia The Sublime Echo, Milford Galleries Dunedin Truth + Beauty, Judith Anderson Galleries, Hawkes Bay Truth + Beauty, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia Truth + Beauty, Brooke/Gifford Gallery, Christchurch Truth + Beauty, Milford Galleries Dunedin Truth + Beauty, Edmiston Duke Gallery, Auckland Illumined by Darkness, Edmiston Duke Gallery, Auckland Navigator, Milford Galleries Queenstown Close to the Eastern Shore, Judith Anderson Galleries, Hawkes Bay Illumined by Darkness, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia The Substance of Clouds, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland Stills from ‘Fading Light’, Bett Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania Fading Light, Milford Galleries Dunedin, Fading Light, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia Underlapping Science, Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, Australia Always Through the Dark; Notes on the Continuing Presence of History, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland A Cinematic Trace, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland, Underlapping Science, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia Marks of the Navigator, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland View, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington Deep Field Measure, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington It is by Gathering Data that we Come to Know about the World, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia Elements, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia Making Notes on the Visible, Milford House, Dunedin Remarks on Space·Time, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland Figuring the Drift of Stars, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland Data Frames, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington Hypertext, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia Signs of Man, The Suter Gallery – Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson Gathering Data, R.K.S. Art, Auckland Recent Work, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington Statistical Text, Monash University Gallery, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Moa Walk, R.K.S. Art, Auckland Attractor, R.K.S. Art, Auckland Archimedes Crying, R.K.S. Art, Auckland Archimedes Crying, The Suter Gallery – Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson

Peter James Smith 2012 CV P a g e |2

Milford Galleries Dunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

1989 1988

Zero Crossing, Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts, Ballarat University, Ballarat, Australia Across Two Waters: A Survey, Faculty Gallery, Faculty of Art and Design, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012

2011

2010 2009 2008

2007

2006

2005 2004

2003

2002

2001 2000

The Review, milford galleries queenstown Time, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, Australia Sculpture, OREXART, Auckland Chosen, milford galleries queenstown Visible/invisible, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, Australia Spring Catalogue, milford galleries queenstown The Review, milford galleries queenstown Between Heaven and Earth, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington Small Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin Southern Landscape, milford galleries queenstown Masterworks, milford galleries queenstown Masterworks, milford galleries queenstown Orchestra, Sculptural Installation with Sound Artists Kipps Horn and Barry Hill, The Field, School of Creative Media, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Anthology, curated by Dianna Gold, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia.

3 x 5, milford galleries auckland Sight Scene: A top of the South Art Tour—Celebrating the Suter’s Collection, curated by Julie Catchpole, The Suter, Te Aratoi o Whakatu Small Works, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia Recent Works: Peter James Smith, JS Parker, Kathy Barber, Scott McFarlane, Cheryl Lucas, milford galleries queenstown Salon, curated by Catherine Wolfhagen, Bett Gallery, Hobart, Australia Location South, milford galleries queenstown Art at Heart, selected work from the Suter Collection, The Suter, Te Aratoi o Whakatu Crossover: 13 Artists Investigating Cross-Cultural Influences, CUSP Gallery, Melbourne, Australia Textures of Place, milford galleries queenstown Inaugural exhibition, Judith Anderson Gallery—Hawkes Bay Compendium, ICON Museum of Art, Deakin University, curated by Martina Copley, Melbourne, Australia The Transit of Venus, milford galleries queenstown, Dunedin and Auckland Artfair 04, Royal Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne, Australia Inaugural Exhibition, Michael Nagy at Jersey Road, Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, Australia Compendium, Platform 5, curated by Martina Copley, Melbourne, Australia Future Perfect, curated by Gerard Castles and Dick Bett, Bett Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania OverView, Is As: Landscape as Metaphor, Milford Galleries Dunedin Strata, Postgraduate exhibition, Class of 2003, RMIT University, Melbourne The Postcard Show, Linden Gallery, St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia The 2002 John Leslie Art Prize: Art refers to Environment, juried exhibition of finalists, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria, Australia Wyndham City Contemporary Art Prize 2002, juried exhibition of finalists, Melbourne, Australia Synergy, A Collaborative Exhibition Between Artists and Scientists, curated by Dick Bett, CSIRO Marine Laboratories, Hobart, Tasmania Melbourne Artfair 2002, 8th Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne, Australia. (Represented by Gallery 101, Melbourne, Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney.)

Bendigo Bank Tattersall’s Club Art Prize, juried exhibition of finalists, Brisbane, Australia Australia---You Are Here! Four Perspectives of Landscape Through Painting and Photography, Gallery 101 at Flemington, Melbourne, Australia Annual Exhibition, Mobile Art, Auckland The Numbers Game, Adam Art Gallery--Te Pataka Toi, Wellington Melbourne Artfair 2000, 7th Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne, Australia.

SQuaRE 2000, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia

Peter James Smith 2012 CV P a g e |3

Milford Galleries Dunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

1999

1998

1997 1996

1995 1994 1992 1986

Mathematics and Art, Bond University Art Gallery, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia Catalogue Show, Milford Galleries Dunedin Salon des Refusees, curated exhibition of entries from the Archibald and Wynne Prizes, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, Australia Looking South-Across Time, Distance, Place and Culture, Milford Galleries Dunedin Director’s Choice, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia Exhibition Space, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland Summer Survey 1998: Robert McLeod, Allen Maddox, Peter James Smith, John Parker, Philippa Blair, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland Picturing History, Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch Sixth Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne, Australia Art for Life, Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch Director’s Choice, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia 3 Major Surveys of Modern New Zealand Art, Milford Galleries Dunedin Director’s Choice, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia Shifting Ground, Moonee Valley Festival Contemporary Art Prize 1996, curated by Sharyn Dawson, Melbourne, Australia Fifth Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Melbourne Royal Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne, Australia The Land, Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch Re-view, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia Artworkz Seven, 101 Collins Street Acquisitive Prizes 1995, juried exhibition of finalists, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia New Year/New Work, R.K.S. Art, Auckland A Breath of Fresh Art-A Selection of Recent Art Works by 35 New Zealand Artists, The Bath·House Art and History Museum, Rotorua Inaugural Exhibition, Editions Gallery, Fremantle, Western Australia

SELECTED AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIPS 2009 1999 1996 1995

Antarctica New Zealand Arts Fellowship Eighth Annual Wallace Art Awards in Association with the Visa Gold Art Award, Wallace Trust Gallery, Auckland Moonee Valley Festival Contemporary Art Prize 1996, Herald-Sun Art Award, finalist, Herald and Weekly Times, Melbourne, Australia

COLLECTIONS Department of Mathematics, University of Auckland Auckland Hospital Board, Auckland New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs Victoria University of Wellington Rothmans Cultural Foundation RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Herald and Weekly Times, Melbourne, Australia Air New Zealand Eastern Energy, Melbourne, Australia La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia 101 Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia National Australia Bank, Melbourne, Australia Massey University, Albany Campus, Auckland Wallace Trust Collection, Auckland The University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia The Suter Gallery – Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson BHP Billliton Collection, Melbourne, Australia The University of Melbourne, Australia Australian National Parliament House Collection, Canberra

Peter James Smith 2012 CV P a g e |4

Milford Galleries Dunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS 2007

2005 2000 1999 1994 1996 1997 1999

2000

2001

2002 2006 2005 2007

2008

Smith, Peter James, Rediscovering lines of longitude—signs of ’New Capture’ for art practice at postmodernism’s demise, in Visual Animals—Crossovers, Evolution and New Aesthetics, Ian North (ed), Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia Smith, Peter James, The text stares back, refereed conference proceedings, School of Creative Media, RMIT University Smith, Peter James, 1st Australian Conference on Mathematics and Art, Keynote speaker, Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia Smith, Peter James, Auckland Writers Festival, Invited speaker, , 28 May Nelson, Robert, Speculations on the Empirical Lyre of Peter James Smith, Statistical Text, exhibition catalogue, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, Australia Stewart, Keith, Ditch—Peter James Smith: painting the gap, catalogue essay, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Australia Stewart, Keith, Life Science, New Zealand Listener, 2 August Marshall, Ben, Painting x Numbers, Australian Style, 31, 101 Kerr, Elizabeth, Looking South - across time, distance, place and culture, catalogue essay, Milford Galleries Dunedin Smith, Peter James, Orbital Elements, Art News, Spring, 24 & 25 Gregory, John, Peter James Smith: It is by gathering data that we come to know about the world, Eyeline, 41, 48--9 Baskett, Pat, All-rounder for our post-modern times, New Zealand Herald, Auckland, NZ, 24 April Stanhope, Zara, The Numbers Game, catalogue essay, Adam Art Gallery, Te Pataka Toi, Wellington, NZ Suzie Campbell, ‘Beyond the Known World: The Paintings of Peter James Smith’, Art New Zealand, 97, 82--85 David Famularo, Mathematical Musings, The Dominion, Wellington, NZ, 17 November Radok , Stephanie, A water or a light, Artlink, 21, 51--52 Copley, Martina, Terrain, catalogue essay, A Cinematic Trace, Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland Martina Copley, The Ship’s Wake, catalogue essay, Underlapping Science, Gallery 101, Melbourne; Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, Australia Hutchings, Patrick, Number is the Wisest Thing, catalogue essay, Underlapping Science, Gallery 101, Melbourne, Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, Australia McGahey, Kate, The Concise History of New Zealand Artists, Painters, Printmakers and Sculptors, Gilt Edge Publishing: Wellington (citation) Synergy, exhibition catalogue, CSIRO Marine Research Laboratories, Hobart, Tasmania McCulloch, A., S. McCulloch and E. McCulloch Childs, McCulloch’s Encyclopaedia of Australian Art, The Miegunyah Press: Victoria, Australia, p897 (citation) Armstrong, John, The Art of the Modern Sublime, catalogue essay, Illumined by Darkness, Edmiston Duke Gallery, Auckland, NZ Furphy, John, Australian Art Sales Digest; A Survey of Australian and New Zealand Sales of Art at Auction over ten years from 1993 to 2007; Acorn Antiques: Armadale, Victoria, Australia Watson, Claire, Truth + Beauty, catalogue essay, Truth + Beauty, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria Pearce, Suzannah (ed), Who’s Who in Victoria; Inaugural Edition, Crown Content: Melbourne, Australia

Signs of Historical Narrative (2006)

Peter James Smith 2012 CV P a g e |5

Milford Galleries Dunedin

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz