STUDIO 18D
6 June - 1 July 2015
part one
www.milfordgalleries.co.nz
Milford Galleries Dunedin 18 Dowling Street (03) 477 7727 info@milfordhouse.co.nz
CONTENTS 1
TOSS WOOLLASTON
Harbour Scene
2
PAT HANLY
A Young Love - Torso P (1977)
3
CHRIS HEAPHY
Grace and Poise (2014)
4
PAUL DIBBLE
Rodent with Dancer (2009)
5
SHIGEYUKI KIHARA
Old Courthouse, Apia (2013)
6
CHRIS CHARTERIS
Vatu ni wasawasa - Stones of the Sea (2013)
7
IAN SCOTT
Lattice No. 164 (1989)
8
ANN ROBINSON
Ice Bowl #94 (Hyacinth Blue) (2014)
9
PAT HANLY
Hope and Fire B (1986)
10
DICK FRIZZELL
Five Star (2014)
11
PAUL DIBBLE
The Last Huia - 1907 (2014)
12
TOSS WOOLLASTON
Lake Wakatipu - Coronet Peak (1973-74)
13
SHIGEYUKI KIHARA
Plantation, Lalomanu (2013)
14
CHRIS HEAPHY
Song Maker (2015)
15
CHRIS CHARTERIS
Forces of Land and Ocean (2015)
16
IAN SCOTT
Lattice No. 40 (1978)
17
ANN ROBINSON
Fern Vase #3 (Dark Olive Green) (2014)
18
DICK FRIZZELL
Hay Rack (2012)
PRICELIST
TOSS WOOLLASTON 1
Harbour Scene oil on board frame: 1075 x 1382 x 45 mm signed & dated bottom right (date barely legible)
Toss Woollaston sought “to reach at one stroke the essence of the feeling.”(1) This overriding artistic objective meant his use of colour and space was deeply informed by an “inseparable and unique interplay of rhythms and forms.” (2) Harbour Scene (assumed to be Otago Harbour) is a masterful painting, filled with feelings of immediacy and profound painterly sensations. We can see each brushstroke, feel its gestural freedom and almost witness the making process. Panoramic in scope, with a high vantage point line of sight, Woollaston delivers an unexpected view; a landscape of feelings, moods and emotions. The colour harmonies are poetic with the role of outline adding solidity to the work and further defining the location. 1. M. Tosswill Woollaston, The Far Away Hills, Auckland Gallery Associates, 1962 (text of the autobiographical lecture given on 8 November 1960 at Auckland Art Gallery) 2. Gil Docking, Two Hundred and Forty Years of New Zealand Painting, Bateman, 2012, p.158
Provenance
Private Collection, Auckland
PAT HANLY 2
A Young Love - Torso P (1977) acrylic on hardboard frame: 770 x 765 x 30 mm panel: 566 x 555 x 3 mm signed & dated bottom left; signed, dated & titled bottom right signed, dated & titled “Torso P” verso
The Torso Series, of which A Young Love – Torso P is a superb example, “were intended as ‘fluid impressions which evoke the qualities, mainly physical, of remembered women’.” (1) In the Torso Series, for the first time, Hanly combined figurative content with the poured, trailed and dripped paint technique that preceded it and which first brought him to national prominence. Fluid gestures, where figurative and abstract techniques were equally weighted, enabled Hanly to develop his unique visual language to complete resolution. There is an unmistakable sexual potency to this work: bright, optimistic, open and available. There exists a beguiling duality with the central heart-shaped image being also read as the legs and torso of a female body, and the head and shoulders, situated further back, are delivered as a sequence of abstracted symbols. This energetic, expressive, direct work makes a “passionate visual statement” by celebrating new love – its fires, its lusts and rhythms. 1. Russell Haley, Hanly: A New Zealand Artist, Hodder & Stoughton,1989, p. 200
Provenance
Private Collection, Dunedin
CHRIS HEAPHY 3
Grace and Poise (2014) acrylic on linen stretcher: 1200 x 1600 x 40 mm signed, dated & titled verso
In Grace and Poise Chris Heaphy develops a wondrous pictorial narrative about journeying into the future, but it does not reveal itself with the linear logic of a story. There are clues and suggestions, symbols and rather ambiguous visual ideograms. Heaphy uses silhouette and overlays as the key pictorial devices. He lays images on top of each other, layering history and events drawn from sources as diverse as Maori Wars, colonial history, his own previous bodies of work and the natural world. Using pictorial space in intriguing and somewhat segmented ways, he further augments this with contrasting flat planes of colour that float on the front space.
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
Exhibited
The Ambassadors, Bartley + Company, Wellington, 2014
PAUL DIBBLE 4
Rodent with Dancer (2009) cast bronze edition 1 of 2 size: 475 x 365 x 137 mm signed, dated “2010” & “NZ” inscribed on base
The human figure counterpointed with objects is a primary subject in Dibble’s oeuvre. So too is his use of irony, humour and visual rhythms. In Rodent with Dancer he builds a fragmented, allegorical narrative, using the tensions of balance and gaze. A ballet dancer (up on her toes) watches a ball, precariously held on the back of her hand. Below this, a well-fed rat gazes up, transfixed. Something is about to happen…
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
SHIGEYUKI KIHARA 5
Old Courthouse, Apia (2013) c-print, edition 4 of 5 sheet: 795 x 1040 mm printed image: 595 x 840 mm signed & dated certificate In recent times, Yuki Kihara’s work has been acquired by the prestigious Los Angeles County Museum, Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and other notable institutions. She has also carried out important residencies internationally. Her work is included in the Sherman Foundation exhibition currently showing at the Art Gallery of NSW. In August she will be undertaking a major production in Germany and in November she will also be one of the featured artists in the Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane at the Queensland Art Gallery with photographic works from the series Where do we come from? Kihara’s critically acclaimed photographic series Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? took its title from an 1897 Gauguin painting. She used those questions to frame her examination of Samoan culture and society following the tsunami of 2009, the 50th anniversary celebrations of Samoa’s independence in 2012 and the destruction caused by Cyclone Evan in 2013. In Old Courthouse Apia, Kihara, dressed in a Victorian mourning dress, makes pointed allusions to neo-colonialism; the role of government and politics. This is done by using the architectural symbolism and language of the building as a device and contrasting this with the back-view of the silhouetted figure standing astride the shadowed line. There is a wondrous dappled light stretching before her.
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
Exhibited
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2013
CHRIS CHARTERIS 6
Vatu ni wasawasa - Stones of the Sea (2013) Southland quartz, Fijian coconut fibre sennit approximate size on wall: 1600 x 1050 x 90 mm
“My grandfather, who was a Fijian Islander, named this work.” “The work is based on a wasekaseka, or sabre tooth necklace, traditionally made from split and polished whales’ teeth and coconut fibre and work by chiefs and high-ranking people.” (1) 1. Chris Charteris, Artist Notes in email correspondence, 21 April 2015
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
Exhibited
Singing Kohatu, Waitaia Nursery, 2014 Show and Tell, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2015
IAN SCOTT 7
Lattice No. 164 (1989) acrylic on canvas stretcher: 1070 x 1070 x 36 mm signed, dated “September 1989” & titled verso
Ian Scott’s mastery of pictorial illusion sits at the heart of the Lattice series. Of course the bands never literally pass over and under each other, but it is in the “optical space” produced by the combination and juxtaposition of colour which animates the surface. In Lattice No 164, Scott “splits colour into different hues and rather than continuing over and under, they exist as independent, rectangular, colourplanes, side by side.” (1) 1. Edward Hanfling, Ian Scott: Lattices, Ferner Galleries, 2005, p. 34
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
ANN ROBINSON 8
Ice Bowl #94 (Hyacinth Blue) (2014) cast glass size (h x ø): 217 x 370 mm signed, titled, dated & “NZ” etched verso
The ice bowl form is one of the seminal, defining forms in Robinson’s practise. It has undergone significant, sequential development over a prolonged period, becoming more defined and resolute, refined and sophisticated. Ice Bowl # 94 is an outstanding work, revealing Robinson to be at the very height of her considerable powers. Made from dichroic glass and therefore altering colour dramatically from incandescent to fluorescent light, it is also unmistakeably a rhythmic masterpiece with the sweeping geometric lines and curves on the facing surface producing subtle, deft, tonal expressions inside.
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
Above Colour under fluorescent light Right Colour under incandescent light
PAT HANLY 9
Hope and Fire B (1986) acrylic on board frame: 613 x 700 x 30 mm panel: 435 x 520 x 20 mm signed & dated top left signed, dated & titled verso
French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour on 11 July, 1985, propelled Hanly’s art into a highly politicised phase. A new body of work – The Fire This Time Series 1983-86 - revisited themes and motifs from the 1960’s Fire Series. Hope and Fire B contains many visual allusions and metaphors to these events and the Pacific: the necklace of dots enclosing his signature and the cloud or atoll form surrounding it, the stylised yacht leaving land, the threatening fire rising up - all presented as a triangle of discord. Clear, flat planes of colour animate the work; deceptively simple, filled with oceans of geographical space, Hope and Fire B is delivered with a message, purpose and numerous layers of meaning.
Provenance
Private Collection, Auckland
DICK FRIZZELL 10
Five Star (2014) oil & enamel on canvas stretcher: 550 x 651 x 37 mm signed, dated “21/4/2014” & titled bottom right
In the celebrated Canned Fish series of the late 1970’s Dick Frizzell delivered for the first time a Pop-Expressionist aesthetic that would become one of his many acclaimed stylistic hallmarks. Five Star is “folk art combined with colour field minimalism.” (1) The bright colours, out of register lettering, evidence of (failed and crude) printing process, shop-soiled, banal and vulgar: these are rendered as if a label and in that process become totally transformed. 1. Dick Frizzell, Dick Frizzell: The Painter, Godwit, 2009, p. 42
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
PAUL DIBBLE 11
The Last Huia - 1907 (2014) cast bronze, stainless steel & 24k gold unique size: 2610 x 945 x 925 mm
Paul Dibble has “dug deeply into the theme of lost fauna and its place in our collective unconscious.” (1) The Last Huia - 1907 traverses the literal and symbolic. The bird is perched on a geometric stand; at once a stylised, metaphoric tree with the circle below establishing another dialogue about the interconnectedness of all things. The Huia burns, phoenix-like, as it exits our world, forever. This eerie, unforgettable and – it needs to be emphasised – beautiful work has something of the unsettling nature of a haunting dream. It is an explicit statement about our history, values and the inexorable, easy creep of loss. 1. Malcolm Burgess, “In Bloom: Paul Dibble’s Dream”, Art New Zealand, 154 Winter 2015, p.55
Provenance
Received from artist’s studio
Exhibited
The Gold of the Kowhai, Gow Langsford Gallery, 2014
TOSS WOOLLASTON 12
Lake Wakatipu - Coronet Peak (1973/74) oil on board frame: 1238 x 2760 x 48 mm signed bottom right dated & titled verso
“I wished to paint sunlight but after it had been absorbed by the earth.” (1) Arguably the most important painting ever by a New Zealand artist of Lake Wakatipu, this is undoubtedly one of Woollaston’s masterpieces. In Lake Wakatipu - Coronet Peak, Woollaston’s contemplative, powerful, panoramic vision matches the epic scale and grandeur of that unique environment. Imbued with ambient light, atmospheric and topographical detail, this compelling work has a wondrously fluid, spontaneous quality as if delivered en plein air. Woollaston’s unrivalled artistic objective was to present the essentials of the landscape and clearly articulate his emotive response to it. This is felt everywhere – in its gestural structure, in the thinly applied washes and brushstroke deftness and seen in the structural use of tone, light and shadow. 1. M. Tosswill Woollaston, The Far Away Hills, Auckland Gallery Associates, 1962 (text of the autobiographical lecture given on 8 November 1960 at Auckland Art Gallery).
Provenance
Private Collection, Auckland
SHIGEYUKI KIHARA 13
Plantation, Lalomanu (2013) c-print, edition 5 of 5 sheet: 795 x 1040 mm printed image: 595 x 840 mm signed & dated certificate
Plantation, Lalomanu places Kihara as a silent witness in amongst the destruction of a plantation. In this work there is a profound sense of being surrounded and in amongst. This is felt in the darkened light, the compelling tactility, profusion, contrasting textures and deepening space. The numerous layers of neo-colonial and Samoan political, social and historical discourse are more slowly revealed and come to further enliven this powerful metaphorical work.
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
Exhibited
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2013 Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, Pataka Art + Museum, Porirua, 2014 Chain of Fire, Prologue Exhibition for the 2016 Honolulu Biennale, Honolulu Biennial Foundation, 2014
CHRIS HEAPHY 14
Song Maker (2015) acrylic on linen stretcher: 606 x 603 x 35 mm signed, dated & titled verso
A feathered head, presented in profile, cameo-like, looks left. We sense the presence of the past but as readily know it is the future that is being sought. There is “mystery hidden in memory.” (1) Heaphy’s painterly virtuosity is shown in numerous ways – the marbling of the dress is explicitly contrasted with the flaming sky; ten flat planes of colour appear, used as amplifying symbols and visual vignettes. 1. Keith Stewart, quoted in email correspondence from artist, 13 May 2015
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
CHRIS CHARTERIS 15
Forces of Land and Ocean (2015) Southland granite approximate size on wall: 2200 x 900 x 100 mm
The necklace form is a universal symbol of love and strength. Charteris says, “I create work which is unique … has qualities of the old world and the new … there are aspects of my work that go beyond interpretation; this is the realm of feeling where the material expresses its own life energy.”(1) Comprised of rounded Southland granite pebbles, this work is a signifier of the links between nature, man and time. The soft tones and subtle colour flecks and changes from stone to stone build visual delicacy and a melody. 1. Chris Charteris, Artist Statement.
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
IAN SCOTT 16
Lattice No. 40 (1978) acrylic on canvas stretcher: 1013 x 1017 x 33 mm signed, dated “February 1978” & titled verso
Originally geometric and grid-like, Ian Scott’s best-known series, the Lattice paintings, became much more dynamic when placed on the diagonal. The interleaving lattice motif and his use of whiteness as an assertive form established an openness and further expansiveness. “His use of space is shallow and seemingly in front of the picture plane and the illusion of depth is cancelled out by the interweaving bands of colour.” (1) In Lattice No. 40, colours seem to pass over and under each other, intersecting at different angles, with different trajectories. Optical oscillations occur and a complex set of relationships develop between the spaces and colours. 1. Edward Hanfling, Two Hundred and Forty Years of NZ Painting, Batemen, 2012, p.224
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
ANN ROBINSON 17
Fern Vase #3 (Dark Olive Green) (2014) cast glass size: 522 x 340 x 340 mm signed, dated “5.5.14” & inscribed “NR 1”, “1/1” & “NZ” verso
With Fern Vase #3 Ann Robinson has introduced a new way of working and in that process each side has become distinctly different. Robinson has abstracted the fern leaf and folded it up the spine of each side. The leaves – variously incised and in relief – have been brightly polished thus becoming translucent. This new technique alters how the vase is experienced. Spatial depth is both established and suggested through the leaves, while the internal bulb of the vase hovers in suspension. Surrounding the leaves on each side is a combed pattern and lightly ridged surface which has been acid-etched. Here, the spatial depth is being denied and the contrast established between the leaves and the surface working is profound. The top lip of the vase has also been polished. Robinson’s use and control of light, with how it moves in and around Fern Vase #3, extends further the complexity of this wondrous vase.
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
Exhibited
Earth & Sky: New Forms, Milford Galleries Dunedin, 2014
DICK FRIZZELL 18
Hay Rack (2012) oil on linen frame: 589 x 691 x 61 mm signed, dated “13/7/2012” & titled bottom right
Few artists demonstrate the technical virtuosity or such an array of painterly interests as Dick Frizzell. Hay Rack is a superb landscape work. Saturated with light, the hay, trees and environment are painted with extraordinary skill. “This display of virtuosity” and “the sureness of Frizzell’s hand is seen in his firm touch in everything… Every touch of paint is decisive…” (1)
1. TJ McNamara, “On the Long and Winding Road: Dick Frizzell”, NZ Herald, April 11, 2015
Provenance
Received from the artist’s studio
Exhibited
Grand Central, Milford Galleries Queenstown, 2012
PRICELIST 1
TOSS WOOLLASTON
Harbour Scene
2
PAT HANLY
A Young Love - Torso P (1977)
47,500
3
CHRIS HEAPHY
Grace and Poise (2014)
18,000
4
PAUL DIBBLE
Rodent with Dancer (2009)
15,500
5
SHIGEYUKI KIHARA
Old Courthouse, Apia (2013)
4,400
6
CHRIS CHARTERIS
Vatu ni wasawasa - Stones of the Sea (2013)
8,200
7
IAN SCOTT
Lattice No. 164 (1989)
14,000
8
ANN ROBINSON
Ice Bowl #94 (Hyacinth Blue) (2014)
40,000
9
PAT HANLY
Hope and Fire B (1986)
35,000
10
DICK FRIZZELL
Five Star (2014)
25,000
11
PAUL DIBBLE
The Last Huia - 1907 (2014)
42,500
12
TOSS WOOLLASTON
Lake Wakatipu - Coronet Peak (1973-74)
POA
13
SHIGEYUKI KIHARA
Plantation, Lalomanu (2013)
4,400
14
CHRIS HEAPHY
Song Maker (2015)
7,800
15
CHRIS CHARTERIS
Forces of Land and Ocean (2015)
10,000
16
IAN SCOTT
Lattice No. 40 (1978)
12,500
17
ANN ROBINSON
Fern Vase #3 (Dark Olive Green) (2014)
35,000
18
DICK FRIZZELL
Hay Rack (2012)
24,000
All prices are NZD and include GST; Prices are current at the time of the exhibition
POA