PETER JAMES SMITH Nine Key Works 2002 - 2008 & Selected Sublime Echo Studies
Preview & Artist Talk Friday 14th May from 5:30pm 15th May - 9th June, 2010
www.milfordgalleries.co.nz
milford galleries queenstown
9A Earl Street (03) 442 6896 qtown@milfordgalleries.co.nz
nine key works
1. PETER JAMES SMITH, Brandish Your Crystal Tresses in the Sky (2008)
oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 1220 x 917 x 35 mm
2. PETER JAMES SMITH, Paradise Lost VII (2008) oil
l on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 915 x 1680 x 35 mm
3. PETER JAMES SMITH, The Universe Hanging by a Golden Thread From the
e Floor of Heaven (2008) oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 915 x 1681 x 35 mm
2. DETAIL VIEW PETER JAMES SMITH, Paradise Lost VII (2008)
3. DETAIL VIEW PETER JAMES SMITH, The Universe Hanging by a Golden Thread From the Floor of Heaven (2008)
4. PETER JAMES SMITH, Landfall (2008), oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 1677 x 915 x 35 mm
4. DETAIL VIEW PETER JAMES SMITH, Landfall (2008)
5. PETER JAMES SMITH, The Text Fails As The Cultural Fabric Fades (2005)
oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 1222 x 916 x 36 mm
5. DETAIL VIEW PETER JAMES SMITH, The Text Fails As The Cultural Fabric Fades (2005)
6. PETER JAMES SMITH, Dumont D'Urville At French Pass, 28 January
y 1827 (2002) oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 916 x 1680 x 35 mm
7. PETER JAMES SMITH, The Measure Of Aoraki (2006)
) oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 917 x 1833 x 38 mm
8. PETER JAMES SMITH, Notes From Farewell Spit (2008
8) oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 915 x 1680 x 35 mm
9. PETER JAMES SMITH, The Passage Of History (2007) o
oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 915 x 1680 x 35 mm
8. DETAIL VIEW PETER JAMES SMITH, Notes From Farewell Spit (2008)
9. DETAIL VIEW PETER JAMES SMITH, The Passage Of History (2007)
studies
10. PETER JAMES SMITH The Sublime Echo - Study IV (The Wetjacket Arm, Dusky Bay) (2008), oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 205 x 310 x 35 mm
11. PETER JAMES SMITH The Sublime Echo - Study XIII (Lewis Pass) (2008), oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 204 x 309 x 35 mm
12. PETER JAMES SMITH The Sublime Echo - Study XVI (The Eastern Shore) (2008), oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 204 x 306 x 35 mm
13. PETER JAMES SMITH The Sublime Echo - Study XVIII (The Gates of Haast) (2008), oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 205 x 307 x 35 mm
14. PETER JAMES SMITH The Sublime Echo - Study XXX (Piopiotahi) (2008), oil on linen, stretcher (v x h x d): 205 x 308 x 35 mm
Melbourne based Peter James Smith is Head of Art at the prestigious RMIT Art School, a world acknowledged authority on statistical mathematics, and one of a select group of New Zealand artists exhibiting in NZ and Australia regularly. In 2009, a major mid-career survey show was held at the Gippsland Art Gallery, Victoria. As revealed in the title, Nine Key Works 2002-08, this exhibition serves to highlight very significant works, and that Peter James Smith has charted a direction no other New Zealand artist has. His combination of pictorial representation and abstract space, along with other devices (such as handwritten text, cinematic borders) and the manner in which he unifies (a history of) intellectual and physical endeavour with visual experience, the specifics of place and the essences of moments (or events) come to forge the unmistakeable duality at the heart of his unique, memorable work. Smith overlays a written narrative upon the landscape, making no attempt to deliver something finite – he is constructing a (partial) window to that landscape, event and knowledge. He deliberately leaves space for the viewer to enquire and participate and in this way expects that the viewer can and will, or could and should, enter the dialogues and experience the work in multiple and various ways. For some, it will be the romantic beauty of the sublime landscape that entices; for others, the intellectual endeavour and human spirit of enquiry that spurs and animates. He uses history, literature, scientific enquiry, the significant journeys of navigators (whether travelling the oceans or entering the world of the cosmos) and collapses time into moments of awe. Collectively his work states that the enquiries of art, mathematics, science, philosophy and the exploits of great human endeavour are in essence united, not at all separate and so share the same objectives.
EXHIBITION PRICELIST
1 Brandish Your Crystal Tresses in the Sky (2008)
10,000
2 Paradise Lost VII (2008)
17,500
3 The Universe Hanging by a Golden Thread From the Floor of Heaven (2008)
17,500
4 Landfall (2008)
17,500
5 The Text Fails As The Cultural Fabric Fades (2005)
14,000
6 Dumont D'Urville At French Pass, 28 January 1827 (2002)
15,000
7 The Measure Of Aoraki (2006)
20,000
8 Notes From Farewell Spit (2008)
17,500
9 The Passage Of History (2007)
17,500
10 The Sublime Echo - Study IV (The Wetjacket Arm, Dusky Bay) (2008)
1,250
11 The Sublime Echo - Study XIII (Lewis Pass) (2008)
1,250
12 The Sublime Echo - Study XVI (The Eastern Shore) (2008)
1,250
13 The Sublime Echo - Study XVIII (The Gates of Haast) (2008)
1,250
14 The Sublime Echo - Study XXX (Piopiotahi) (2008)
1,250
All prices are NZD and include GST; Prices are current at the time of the exhibition
PETER JAMES SMITH b. 1954, lives Melbourne
The Last Retreat Of The Kaitmamo (2007)
Peter James Smith: “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.” 1 “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 sky scapes 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.” 2 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 is Professor of Mathematics and Art at RMIT University in Melbourne where he is Head of the School of Creative Media (photography, creative writing, screenwriting, film and television production, video production, multimedia, music production, digital art, computer gaming). He has just completed an Australia Research Council Grant in the area of statistical modelling of censored data. His paintings are held in many public, private and corporate collections in New Zealand, Australia and internationally. References: 1. 2.
Artist’s Statement, 2000. Keith Stewart, ‘Life Science’, Listener, 2 August 1997
Peter James Smith 2010 CV P a g e |1
milford galleries queenstown
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 2009 2008 2007
2006 2005
2004 2003 2002
2001 2000 1999 1998
1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1991 1990 1989 1988
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 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
Peter James Smith 2010 CV P a g e |2
milford galleries queenstown
www.milfordgalleries.co.nz
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2009 2008
2007
2006
2005 2004
2003
2002
2001 2000
1999
1998
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. Stand 33 @ Gallery 101, A Melbourne Artfair 2000 Satellite Exhibition, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia SQuaRE 2000, Gallery 101, Collins St, Melbourne, Australia Mathematics and Art, Bond University Art Gallery, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia Catalogue Show, Milford House, 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 Eighth Annual Wallace Art Awards in Association with the Visa Gold Art Award, juried exhibition of finalists, Wallace Trust Gallery, Auckland 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
Peter James Smith 2010 CV P a g e |3
milford galleries queenstown
www.milfordgalleries.co.nz
1997 1996
1995
1994 1992 1986
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 Herald-Sun Art Award, juried exhibition of finalists, Herald and Weekly Times, 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
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS 2007
2005 2000 1999 1994
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
Peter James Smith 2010 CV P a g e |4
milford galleries queenstown
www.milfordgalleries.co.nz
1996
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
1997 1999
2000
2001
2002 2006 2005 2007
2008
The Measure of Aoraki (2006)
Peter James Smith 2010 CV P a g e |5
milford galleries queenstown
www.milfordgalleries.co.nz