GARRY CURRIN

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

milford galleries queenstown9A Earl Street (03) 442 6896 [email protected]

27th August - 21st September 2011

GARRY CURRINThis Day, That Hour

1. GARRY CURRIN, This Day That Hour (2008) oil on canvas, stretcher

oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 1013 x 1826 x 33 mm

2. GARRY CURRIN, This Day That Hour I (2011), oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 837 x 1520 x 33 mm

2. DETAIL VIEW GARRY CURRIN, This Day That Hour I (2011)

3. GARRY CURRIN, This Day That Hour II (2011), oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 837 x 1520 x 33 mm

3. DETAIL VIEW GARRY CURRIN, This Day That Hour II (2011)

4. GARRY CURRIN, This Day That Hour IV (2011), oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 837 x 1520 x 33 mm

4. DETAIL VIEW GARRY CURRIN, This Day That Hour IV (2011)

5. GARRY CURRIN, Takemitsu's Garden (2010) oil on canvas, stretcher

oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 1515 x 1836 x 38 mm

6. GARRY CURRIN, Various Distances Apart, Kaipara (2010), oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 1018 x 1500 x 38 mm

6. DETAIL VIEW GARRY CURRIN, Various Distances Apart, Kaipara (2010)

7. GARRY CURRIN, This Distance (Circa 1915) I (2008), oil on paper, frame (v x h x d): 936 x 1203 x 60 mm, painted image (v x h): 640 x 930 mm

7. DETAIL VIEW GARRY CURRIN, This Distance (Circa 1915) I (2008)

8. GARRY CURRIN, This Distance (Circa 1915) II (2008), oil on paper, frame (v x h x d): 925 x 1200 x 60 mm, painted image (v x h): 637 x 930 mm

8. DETAIL VIEW GARRY CURRIN, This Distance (Circa 1915) II (2008)

9. GARRY CURRIN, Landscape Without Len Lye I (2008), oil on paper, frame (v x h x d): 924 x 1200 x 60 mm, painted image (v x h): 640 x 930 mm

9. DETAIL VIEW GARRY CURRIN, Landscape Without Len Lye I (2008)

The works collected in Garry Currin’s latest exhibition ‘This Day, That Hour’ exemplify the mastery

that we have come to expect from the hand of this astonishing painter. Currin’s veiled landscapes

are darkly radiant; they gleam with hidden riches. Rather than laying out familiar forms of land and

sea and sky, the viewer must discover the works little by little, moving from one subtle signpost to

another.

The splintered screen and molten golds of ‘Takemitsu’s Garden’ provide multiple resting surfaces for

the gaze. Flowing tone-on-tone colour seamlessly moves the eye from one section of the painting

to another, each time allowing quiet contemplation of the work. Currin’s use of chiaroscuro does

not create a harsh contrast but utilises blurred lines and soft, dark hues to suggest shrouded depths

within the picture plane. Inspired by modern Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, Currin says of this

work that it is ‘an experience and a moment around [Takemitsu’s] enigmatic soundscapes’(1). The

tonal layering in Currin’s paintings is likewise enigmatic, giving only a little away to a casual glance,

but rewarding the patient viewer.

‘Various Distances Apart, Kaipara’ uses a darker palette than ‘Takemitsu’s Garden’ but Currin

allows burnished gold and yellow to gleam through the mauve-greys and rich blacks that cloak the

painting’s surface. Once again forms are indistinct – do we look out from a boat prow, a wharf, a

headland? Subtle darkened edges in this, and other works, are reminiscent of a screen, a device

which concurrently reinforces the two-dimensionality of the painting and prompts us to recall the

depths that the artist creates on the picture plane. This paradoxical configuration underlines the

exquisitely balanced tension and ambiguity inherent in all of Currin’s works.

From Currin’s ‘Occupied Territory’ series, ‘This Day, That Hour’ is described by the artist as ‘an instant

in a moving landscape’(2). Fluid brushwork dominates the centre of the painting, suggestive of a

maelstrom or a vortex frozen in time and creating a discernible sense of unease. Visual relief is

provided in a bleak, almost featureless sky and the still mountain form on the horizon. In many of his

works, Currin carefully places visual markers to draw the eye and we see here a bright spot circled

as if to indicate a starting point from which to proceed, a small island of calm amidst the swirling

surface.

For the first time, we have on display works on paper from Currin and, in contrast to the paintings,

their visual language speaks more directly. In ‘Landscape without Len Lye’, a 2008 work, Mt

Taranaki is clearly defined and recognisable, even without the work’s title pointing the way.

Working in monotones, Currin’s textured, painterly brushwork creates a brooding landscape in

which the familiar mountain form becomes only a part of a larger, fractured, and uneasy

environment.

A painting by Garry Currin is not a fixed mark, but a mutable entity; it varies with light, perspective,

mood, allowing space for the viewer to bring themselves to the work. He evokes a land that is

overlaid with a sense of the spiritual, but does so without bombast or agenda. Currin’s work is not

for the impatient, but will reward with riches those with time to look, and then look again.

(1) Currin, Garry. Note to painting, 2011

(2) Ibid

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

E X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S T 1 This Day That Hour (2008) 15,000

2 This Day That Hour I (2011) 11,000

3 This Day That Hour II (2011) 11,000

4 This Day That Hour IV (2011) 11,000

5 Takemitsu's Garden (2010) 17,000

6 Various Distances Apart, Kaipara (2010) 14,000

7 This Distance (Circa 1915) I (2008) 5,750

8 This Distance (Circa 1915) II (2008) 5,750

9 Landscape Without Len Lye I (2008) 5,750

Garry Currin 2011 CV milford galleries queenstown www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

P a g e | 1

GARRY CURRIN b. 1952, lives Warkworth

This Distance (2008/09)

His paintings are "internal landscapes. They have a physicality about them like landscapes, but they also

have something more. People see things in them that I don't see". (1)

“Currin’s work is …made major by a scope that encompasses not only the edgy physical attributes of its

subject, but also the metaphorical implications, so that Currin actually captures the power, the darkness

and the malevolence of the very thing that he paints.” (2)

“The monochromatic and the atmospheric way forms in his paintings melt into one another exude a

sense of mystery.” (3)

“He paints as if mixing rare elixirs with rancid oils. He’s a lyricist in paint, coaxing moody landscapes out

of tangled streaks and veils of colour. He’s a quester in search of lost time, remembering things past: the

fall of shadow at a certain time of day, the spiritualised sunburst, the cloud-splitting vista at dusk.

“His paintings are phantasmagoric because they’re less actual landscapes than they are atmospheric

reconstructions… At times his paintings seem to well up from the surfaces they’re painted on like

secretions. They’re tinged with a morbid edge, a Gothic resonance verging on the melodramatic.

These are the talismans of skewed memory. Currin teases and disrupts your attempts to establish reality

of place by, say, triangulating a few landmarks. … He offers you inventions which tease and tantalise

with their elusiveness. The landmarks fluctuate, dissolving back into the paint before re-emerging as

cloud, or surf, or waterspout.” (4)

Born Wanganui, New Zealand 1952. Currin has been exhibiting his work since 1976. The time he devotes

to painting and his exhibiting programme has been gathering momentum in recent years. Currin was a

finalist in the Wallace Visa Gold Award in 1999 and a finalist in the James Wallace Awards 10 times since

1995 in addition to winning the ‘people's choice' vote in 2004. In 2008 Currin won the BMW Bonnet Artist

grand prize at the BMW art awards and in 2011, a merit in the NZ Painting and Printmaking Award. His

work is included in various significant collections.

1. Garry Currin, Artist Statement, 2009

2. Paul Field, ‘Seascapes capture power’, Otago Daily Times, 14 June 2001

3. Charmian Smith, ‘Shifting Changing World Inspires’, Otago Daily Times, March 27, 2003

4. David Eggleton, ‘Garry Currin The Painter as Salvage Artist’, Art New Zealand No. 94, Autumn 2000


P a g e | 2

GARRY CURRIN b. 1952, lives Warkworth

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2011 This Day, That Hour, milford galleries queenstown

Smoke and Dreaming, Whitespace, Auckland

Various Distances Apart, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2010 New Work, Whitespace, Auckland

2009 Inland, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2008 This Distance, Statements Gallery, Napier

Occupied Territory, milford galleries auckland

2006 Quotation of Dream, milford galleries auckland

Sea Narratives, milford galleries queenstown

2005 Old Language, milford galleries auckland

2003 Apertures, Milford Galleries Dunedin

Pages from the Book of Balls II, McPherson Gallery, Auckland

2001 Seacliff Narratives, Milford Galleries Dunedin

New Works, McPherson Gallery, Auckland

2000 New Works, Statements Gallery, Napier

1999 New Works, Peter Muirs Petford Gallery, Auckland

Pages from the Book of Balls, Drawings Gallery, Auckland

1997 Impressions I, Drawings Gallery, Auckland

Impressions II, Chiaroscuro Gallery, Auckland

1995 Emotional Landscape Series, Chiaroscuro Gallery, Auckland

1994 Conflict of Conscience, Chiaroscuro Gallery, Auckland

1993 Psychological Luggage, Devonport Gallery, Auckland

1980 From Dawn Till Dusk, Mollers Gallery, Auckland

1976 The Escaped Gnome, Mollers Gallery, Auckland

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2011 Large Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2010 The Earl Street Journal., milford galleries queenstown

Drawings, Annual Drawing Show, NorthArt Gallery, Auckland

Small Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin

The Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries queenstown

Mahurangi Group at Matakana

My City, Group Show, Whitespace, Auckland

Wild Swans, Rayner Brothers Gallery, Wanganui

2009 Drawings (Annual Drawing Show), NorthArt Gallery, Auckland

Masterworks, milford galleries queenstown

Private Viewing, milford galleries queenstown

2008 10 Big Paintings, NorthArt Gallery, Auckland

Occupied Territory II, A Fine Line Gallery, Matakana

2007 Five By Three, Milford Galleries Dunedin

Masterworks, milford galleries queenstown

2005 The Southern Landscape, milford galleries queenstown

This Earth: Currin, Edwards and McFarlane, milford galleries auckland

Southern Landscape Dunedin, Milford Galleries Dunedin

The Southern Landscape, milford galleries queenstown

2004 Group Show, Statements Gallery, Napier

Transit of Venus, Milford Galleries Dunedin

Transit of Venus, milford galleries queenstown

2003 Devonport Connections, Flagstaff Gallery, Auckland

Overview IS AS: ‘Landscape As Metaphor’, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2002 Meeting Point, Flagstaff Gallery, Auckland

2001 3 C’s, The Depot, Auckland


P a g e | 3

2000 Winners Show, Westshore Arts Centre, Auckland

1999 100 x 100, McPherson Gallery, Auckland

Eight Devonport Artists, Statements Gallery, Napier

Beyond Beauty, Peter Muirs Petford Gallery, Auckland

1998 Milford Galleries Dunedin

Small Works Exhibition, Drawings Gallery, Auckland

Spiritual Themes in Art, St. Georges Church, Auckland

Terrestrial Forces Exhibition, Statements Gallery, Napier

1997 Westshore Exhibition, Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland

ASA Working Members Show, ASA Gallery, Auckland

Ida Eise Award Exhibition, ASA Gallery, Auckland

Art Auction Show, Outreach Gallery, Auckland

1996 Spiritual Themes Exhibition, St. Georges Church, Auckland

Copy Art Exhibition, Outreach Gallery, Auckland

Small Works Exhibition, Drawings Gallery, Auckland

Group Show, Chiaroscuro Gallery, Auckland



1995 Ida Eise Award Exhibition, ASA Gallery, Auckland


1994 ASA Working Members Show, ASA Gallery, Auckland


1993 ASA Portrait Exhibition, ASA Gallery, Auckland

1981 Group Show, Mollers Gallery, Auckland

1977 Group Show, Mollers Gallery, Auckland

AWARDS

2011 The NZ Painting and Printmaking Award, Merit Award

2010 19th Annual Wallace Awards, Finalist

2008 BMW Bonnet Artist grand prize at the BMW art awards

Wallace Award, Finalist

2007 Wallace Award, Finalist



Wallace Award, People’s Choice Award

2003 Cranleigh Barton Drawing Award, Finalist

2001 Cranleigh Barton Drawing Award, Finalist


1999 Wallace Visa Gold Award, Finalist




1992 Westshore Exhibition, two Merit Awards

COLLECTIONS

The Wallace Trust Collection

Private collections New Zealand, Europe and Australia

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2009 Benson, Nigel, ‘Dark Lands’, Otago Daily Times, August 28 2008

2008 John Daly-Peoples, ‘The Art Of BMW’, New Zealand Business Review, October 16 2008

2007 ‘Paintings Mesh With Poetry’, Art News, Summer 2007

2006 Howard, David, The Word Went Round, (with eight Garry Currin paintings accompanying the title

poem), Otago University Press, 2006

2004 Amery, Mark, ‘13th Wallace Awards Travelling Show, Dowse Museum’, Dominion Post, 2004

2003 Smith, Charmian, ‘Shifting Changing World Inspires’, Otago Daily Times, March 27 2003

2000 Eggleton, David, ‘Garry Currin: The Painter as Salvage Artist’, Art New Zealand, Autumn 2000

Documents

GARRY CURRIN