US artist Brice Marden said: each time you see a painting, it stays the same but you have changed.
In a world where we always look for the latest novelty, art provides continuity.
I first met John Brown in the 1990s when he was part of Sturdee Street Studios in downtown Auckland, and later with Indicator Studios in Mount Eden.
These were busy places, full of art production and famous art events that occurred once or twice a year – art exhibitions with plenty of emphasis on social discourse.
John has kept up a consistent practice over his thirty years of exhibiting; he was the recipient of the Kaipara Foundation residency in Solothurn, Switzerland in 2012, and the 2019 Molly Morpeth Canaday Award.
He has been domiciled in Hawkes Bay for some time now, so it was a delight to catch up with him and his artwo
rk at Melanie Roger Gallery in Karangahape Road last month.
Brown’s work references local histories, using events, people and places as a basis for developing his paintings.
The subject of 'Mr Teviotdale' is a central pattern of sliced curves that resembles a cubist portrait of the eponymous ethnographer (1870-1958), who is responsible for much of our understanding of the moa and moa hunters of the pre-European Otago region.
Behind this abstract visage are stylised hills cut in sombre greens and blacks below a sky that shows the archaeology of paint layers.
John is firmly local in his content. “My current series of new paintings start informed by a source, and each painting evolves through the process of making: adding, erasing, over-painting and editing.
Eventually, strong abstract representational associations evolve within the content of the paintings, which evokes a regional sense, both familiar and personal.”
The group exhibition features works by John Brown, Tom Mackie, who cleverly plays with object and image, and Richard Orjis, whose sprawling floral still-life spun pops of colour on a dense matte black background.
EVAN WOODRUFFE, Studio Art Supplies
www.studioart.co.nz
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Published 3 July 2023