THE SURREAL

Milford Galleries Dunedin18 Dowling Street Dunedin (03) 477 7727 [email protected]

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

4th February - 29th February 2012

The Sur real

1. RAY CHING, Lists / Stratocumulous Goose (2007)oil on canvas on panel, panel (v x h x d): 1370 x 1750 x 18 mm

1. RAY CHING, Lists / Stratocumulous Goose (2007) DETAIL VIEW

2. RAY CHING, The City Hedgehog and the Country Hedgehog (2008)

oil on board, frame (v x h x d): 1085 x 1264 x 20 mm, panel (v x h): 900 x 1080 mm

2. RAY CHING, The City Hedgehog and the Country Hedgehog (2008) DETAIL VIEW

3. RAY CHING, Pelorus Jack and the Monkey (2008)

oil on board, frame (v x h x d): 1075 x 1254 x 20 mm, panel (v x h): 910 x 1090 mm

3. RAY CHING, Pelorus Jack and the Monkey (2008) DETAIL VIEW

4. RAY CHING, At the Museum / Cry of the Young Karearea (2007)

oil on canvas on panel, frame (v x h x d): 1103 x 1254 x 35 mm, panel (v x h): 930 x 1080 mm

4. RAY CHING, At the Museum / Cry of the Young Karearea (2007) DETAIL VIEW

5. RAY CHING, The Crowing Cockerel, the Fox and the Wallaby (2007)

oil on canvas on panel, frame (v x h x d): 1380 x 1685 x 20 mm, panel (v x h): 1210 x 1520 mm

5. RAY CHING, The Crowing Cockerel, the Fox and the Wallaby (2007) DETAIL VIEW

6. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Sea Travel (2009), oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 922 x 1068 x 23 mm

6. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Sea Travel (2009) DETAIL VIEW

7. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Food for Thought (2009), oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 1118 x 1375 x 22 mm

7. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Food for Thought (2009) DETAIL VIEW

8. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Caught Short (2010)

oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 1120 x 1375 x 25 mm

9. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Caught Short II (2010)


9. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Caught Short II (2010) DETAIL VIEW

10. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Fly By Night (Planes / Figures) [BG#3] (1999)

oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h): 1670 x 908 mm

10. JOANNA BRAITHWAITE, Fly By Night (Planes / Figures) [BG#3] (1999) DETAIL VIEW

11. JENNA PACKER, Vantage Point (2011), acrylic on canvas, frame (v x h x d): 432 x 532 x 48 mm, stretcher (v x h x d): 306 x 406 x 36 mm

11. JENNA PACKER, Vantage Point (2011) DETAIL VIEW

12. JENNA PACKER, Messenger Bay (2011), acrylic on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 405 x 507 x 38 mm

Facing Page: 13. JENNA PACKER, Pontoon (2011), acrylic on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 560 x 710 x 38 mm

14. JENNA PACKER, Saltmarsh Hangar (2011), acrylic on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 913 x 1220 x 34 mm

14. JENNA PACKER, Saltmarsh Hangar (2011) DETAIL VIEW

15. JENNA PACKER, The Camp (2011), acrylic on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 915 x 1220 x 34 mm

15. JENNA PACKER, The Camp (2011) DETAIL VIEW

16. GARY WALDROM, Girl and Ceramic Pig (2008/09), oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 1220 x 1829 x 23 mm

18. GARY WALDROM, Sundance Sisters (2006-09), oil on canvas, frame (v x h x d): 842 x 1682 x 25 mm

17. GARY WALDROM, Fairground (2008), oil on canvas, frame (v x h x d): 1020 x 1675 x 25 mm, stretcher (v x h x d): 1017 x 1672 x 20 mm

17. GARY WALDROM, Fairground (2008) DETAIL VIEW

19. GARY WALDROM, Girl and Horse I (second series) (2008/09)


20. GARY WALDROM, Urban Escape (2000)

diptych; oil on canvas, top / bottom panels (v x h x d): 1070 x 1838 x 25 mm each

21. MARC BLAKE, 8 Minutes and 18 Seconds (2011)

tetraptych; acrylic, water-soluble oil, graphite, colour pencil, pigment ink & UVLS varnish on board, overall size (v x h x d): 1590 x 2000 x 46 mm

21. MARC BLAKE, 8 Minutes and 18 Seconds (2011) DETAIL VIEW

22. MARC BLAKE, Future Fund (2011)

tetraptych; water soluble oil, acrylic, graphite, colour pencil, pigment ink, UVLS varnish, total size (v x h x d): 1594 x 2800 x 46 mm, panels each (v x h): 797 x 1400 mm

22. MARC BLAKE, Future Fund (2011) DETAIL VIEW

23. MARC BLAKE, Everything I Can Do to Remember (2011)

acrylic, graphite, colour pencil, pigment ink & UVLS varnish on board, panel (v x h x d): 1201 x 1198 x 46 mm

23. MARC BLAKE, Everything I Can Do to Remember (2011) DETAIL VIEW

24. MARC BLAKE, The Value of Persistence (2011)

acrylic, graphite, colour pencil, pigment ink & UVLS varnish on board, panel (v x h x d): 599 x 965 x 46 mm

24. MARC BLAKE, The Value of Persistence (2011) DETAIL VIEW

25. MARC BLAKE, Everything I've Ever Known (2009) acrylic, graphite, colour pencil, pigment ink & UVLS varnish on board, diptych; panels overall

acrylic, graphite, colour pencil, pigment ink & UVLS varnish on board, diptych; panels overall (v x h x d): 1203 x 2400 x 46 mm

26. PAUL MARTINSON, Jam Jar Fishers (2011)

acrylic on board, frame (v x h x d): 848 x 659 x 46 mm, panel (v x h x d): 800 x 608 x 5 mm

26. PAUL MARTINSON, Jam Jar Fishers (2011) DETAIL VIEW

27. PAUL MARTINSON, Black Light (2012), oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 835 x 505 x 33 mm

27. PAUL MARTINSON, Black Light (2012) DETAIL VIEW

28. PAUL MARTINSON, Wedding Safari (2011)

watercolour, watercolour pencil & gouache on paper, frame (v x h x d): 825 x 965 x 34 mm

29. PAUL MARTINSON, On the Origin of Species (2012)

watercolour, watercolour pencil & gouache on paper, frame (v x h x d): 840 x 990 x 35 mm

29. PAUL MARTINSON, On the Origin of Species (2012) DETAIL VIEW

30. PAUL MARTINSON, Ornithological Pursuits (2012)

watercolour, watercolour pencil, gouache & gold foil on paper, frame (v x h x d): 780 x 940 x 35 mm, painted image (v x h): 395 x 590 mm

30. PAUL MARTINSON, Ornithological Pursuits (2012) DETAIL VIEW

31. SIMON CLARK, No Place Like Home (2011)

oil & dutch gold leaf on board, panel (v x h x d): 1320 x 1000 x 41 mm

32. SIMON CLARK, Ranch Slider (2009)oil on board, panel (v x h x d): 1320 x 1000 x 45 mm

33. SIMON CLARK, Carbine Road (2009)

oil on board, panel (v x h x d): 1000 x 1320 x 45 mm

34. SIMON CLARK, Five Thirty for Seven (2010)

oil on board, panel (v x h x d): 1000 x 1314 x 45 mm

33. SIMON CLARK, Carbine Road (2009) DETAIL VIEW

35. SIMON CLARK, The Ecstasy of Communication (2011)

oil & 24 carat gold leaf on board, panel (v x h x d): 460 x 460 x 41 mm

35. SIMON CLARK, The Ecstasy of Communication (2011) DETAIL VIEW

Growing out of the anarchy of Dadaism, the original Surrealists (Picabia, Breton,

Duchamp, Chirico, amongst others), saw their movement as a philosophy of social and

moral revolution where “the dream is omnipotent.”(1) In his 1924 publication Surrealist

Manifesto, Andre Breton states that Surrealism expresses “the actual functioning of

thought… in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic

or moral concern.”(2) How do the artists chosen for this exhibition – Marc Blake, Joanna

Braithwaite, Ray Ching, Simon Clark, Jenna Packer, Paul Martinson, Gary Waldrom – fit

into this idea of the Surreal?

Simon Clark’s ‘No Place Like Home’ and Joanna Braithwaite’s ‘Sea Travel’ both defy the

constraints of a rational world, instead depicting places where fish do indeed require

bicycles. Clark’s bicycling fish are lined up with other creatures of invention: the Frosty

Boy, a Mobil Oil Pegasus, the bird-chaser from Cerebos salt, and, centre stage, an

unnerving doll in quasi-Maori dress, hand raised in greeting. If this peculiar world is home,

there is indeed no place like it. Clark’s parade of disjointed characters is dreamlike:

random elements combine to create an irrational whole, certainly depicting the “play of

thought” advocated by Breton.

Marc Blake says of his work that “it can feel like I'm trapped or hemmed in somehow,

and I have to wait until the right idea comes and suggests a way forward”(3) – this idea

of the subconscious subverting the rational hints at the ‘automatic drawing’ practiced

by both the Dadaists and the Surrealists. A raft of (seemingly) disconnected dream-like

images inhabits the works of Marc Blake. Realist images of children, schoolgirls and old

men are belied by the “immense amount of seeming contradiction”(4) in Blake’s work.

Shown in a flattened, unreal perspective, and accompanied by stylised trees and

ghostly creatures, his characters tote machine guns, wear gas masks and die in their suits

as costumed children pass by (‘Everything I’ve Ever Known’) and submarines breach an

unnamed sea.

The ‘facts’ of place, time and history are also undermined in the paintings of Jenna

Packer and Gary Waldrom. Packer’s delicate brushwork and muted hues bring to mind

19th century depictions of New Zealand settlement, at first glance comfortingly familiar.

Upon closer examination however, it becomes clear that Packer’s story-telling has its

roots in an alternative reality. ‘The Camp’ reveals a desolate harbourscape where

settlers seek shelter in the decrepit hulk of a zeppelin and other works feature fantastical

waka-forms bedecked with bunting whilst giant dragonflies flit through sepia-toned skies.

Set against burnt-orange hills and a glowing sky, outsized, grinning faces couple with the

disparate elements of an eyepatch, conductor’s cap and bare breasts in Gary

Waldrom’s ‘Sundance Sisters’. The forthright gaze of the sisters is disconcertingly direct,

they stare out of a twilight world, betwixt and between the boundaries of everyday life.

Here and there, now and then – these rational parameters are concealed beneath the

saturated jewel-tones of Waldrom’s canvases as he juxtaposes “two more or less distant

realities”(5), something Breton believes essential to create an image of “emotional

power and reality.”(6)

Breton writes of fairy tales, as a “fabric of adorable improbabilities”(7) that needs to be

tweaked for adult consumption; he would undoubtedly find that artists Ray Ching and

Paul Martinson are skilled exponents of this. Their exquisitely painted pictures possess the

very “fear, attraction of the unusual, chance, the taste for things extravagant”(8) that

adult fables need. Ching’s works are fabulous in the original sense of the word ie: fable-

like. ‘Pelorus Jack and the Monkey’ and ‘The City Hedgehog and the Country

Hedgehog’ are Ching’s take on Aesop, complete with moral lessons. Ching’s

juxtaposition of incongruous stylistic devices such as expository text, comic book imagery

and stunningly realist portraiture in works such as ‘Lists/Stratocumulous Goose’ tell stories

which are multi-layered and complex, their meanings hidden.

Paul Martinson is open about his work’s surrealist undertones, believing that:

“to draw spontaneously without conscious reference to normality, morality

and social taboos … is an attempt to allow a ‘free flow’ of imagery and

ideas as a painter.”(9)

This ‘free flow’ permits him to create spaces where fish swim in lightbulbs and birds sleep

in jumbled piles. The juxtaposition of the rational and the irrational is a powerful tool and

the viewer has no choice but to examine the relationships between what is ‘real’ and

what is not. Martinson’s paintings, with their delicate colour washes and meticulous

detailing, are like the mirror in Alice Through The Looking Glass – reflecting not just what is

visible, but what is not.

Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto was written at a time of massive social upheaval: post-World

War I horror, new political and social structures rising in Europe, art that turned traditional

19th century Academy traditions on their heads. He intended it as a call to further social

revolution, a new way of thinking for a new world order. We see now that, although the

revolutionary zeal may be dimmed, artists today are still concerned with the ‘unsparing

quality’ of the imagination Breton espouses. He would wholeheartedly approve of the

ways in which our artists ‘refuse to accept defeat, set off from whatever point they

choose, along any other path save a reasonable one, and arrive where they can.”(10)

1. Breton, Andre. Surrealist Manifesto, 1924

2. Ibid.

3. Blake, Marc. Q+A #2: Emily Goldsmith with Marc Blake. Sydney, January 2011

http://www.marcblake.co.nz/marc_blake_words_Jan2011.html


5. Pierre Reverdy, quoted in Surrealist Manifesto, Andre Breton, 1924.

6. Ibid


8. Ibid.

9. Paul Martinson, Artist’s Statement, 2010

10. 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 TE X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S TE X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S TE X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S T

R A Y C H I N GR A Y C H I N GR A Y C H I N GR A Y C H I N G

1 Lists / Stratocumulous Goose (2007) POA

2 The City Hedgehog and the Country Hedgehog (2008) 23,000

3 Pelorus Jack and the Monkey (2008) 23,000

4 At the Museum / Cry of the Young Karearea (2007) 34,000

5 The Crowing Cockerel, the Fox and the Wallaby (2007) POA

J O A N N A B R A I T H W A I T EJ O A N N A B R A I T H W A I T EJ O A N N A B R A I T H W A I T EJ O A N N A B R A I T H W A I T E

6 Sea Travel (2009) 9,500

7 Food for Thought (2009) 12,000

8 Caught Short (2010) 12,000

9 Caught Short II (2010) 12,000

10 Fly By Night (Planes / Figures) [BG#3] (1999) 7,500

J E N N A P A C K E RJ E N N A P A C K E RJ E N N A P A C K E RJ E N N A P A C K E R

11 Vantage Point (2011) 2,750

12 Messenger Bay (2011) 2,750

13 Pontoon (2011) 3,750

14 Saltmarsh Hangar (2011) 6,000

15 The Camp (2011) 6,000

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

G A R Y W A L D R O MG A R Y W A L D R O MG A R Y W A L D R O MG A R Y W A L D R O M

16 Girl and Ceramic Pig (2008/09) 17,500

17 Fairground (2008) 15,000

18 Sundance Sisters (2006-09) 15,000

19 Girl and Horse I (second series) (2008/09) 17,500

20 Urban Escape (2000) 19,500

M A R C B L A K EM A R C B L A K EM A R C B L A K EM A R C B L A K E

21 8 Minutes and 18 Seconds (2011) 9,500

22 Future Fund (2011) 12,500

23 Everything I Can Do to Remember (2011) 5,000

24 The Value of Persistence (2011) 3,500

25 Everything I've Ever Known (2009) 8,500

P A U L M A R T I N S O NP A U L M A R T I N S O NP A U L M A R T I N S O NP A U L M A R T I N S O N

26 Jam Jar Fishers (2011) 7,500

27 Black Light (2012) 6,000

28 Wedding Safari (2011) 7,000

29 On the Origin of Species (2012) 6,500

30 Ornithological Pursuits (2012) 5,500

S I M O N C L A R KS I M O N C L A R KS I M O N C L A R KS I M O N C L A R K

31 No Place Like Home (2011) 6,500

32 Ranch Slider (2009) 6,000

33 Carbine Road (2009) 6,000

34 Five Thirty for Seven (2010) 6,000

35 The Ecstasy of Communication (2011) 2,500

Documents

THE SURREAL