GARRY CURRIN

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

5th - 30th March, 2010

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

GARRY CURRINVarious Distances Apart

1. GARRY CURRIN, Fire at Ephesus I (2010) oil on canvas, stretcher

oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 755 x 855 x 33 mm

2. GARRY CURRIN, Fire at Ephesus II (2010) oil on canvas, stretcher


3. GARRY CURRIN, Various Distances Apart III (2010)

) oil on canvas, stretcher (v x h x d): 803 x 900 x 35 mm

4. GARRY CURRIN, Meditation on Orpheus III (2008-10)


5. GARRY CURRIN, Smoke and Dreaming I (2007-10) oil on canvas, stretcher


6. GARRY CURRIN, Smoke and Dreaming II (2010) oil on canvas, stretcher


7. GARRY CURRIN, Various Distances Apart I (2008-10)


8. GARRY CURRIN, Smoke and Dreaming (2010) oil on board, panel

oil on board, panel (v x h x d): 470 x 595 x 44 mm, painted image (v x h): 243 x 378 mm

To suggest Garry Currin is a magician wielding paint is to touch lightly upon his

unrivalled capacity to combine as one the notionally disparate. We see abstraction

and (apparent) elements of photo-realism inextricably linked (Smoke and Dreaming,

2010). In other works, (Various Distances Apart I, 2008-10 and Fire at Ephesus II, 2010),

architecture and atmosphere unite the linear and organic. Currin takes us to and

then inside a world which is part-fiction, part-fact and out of this comes myth, event

and the majesty of his considerable painterly accomplishments.

He references the past – the ancient Greek city of Ephesus and the site of the

Temple of Artemis – by building sensations in his work to accompany pictorial

information. In every work there is something coming or something has happened.

He uses devices such as implied moving screens. He speaks of ruin and the travails of

civilisation with stairs leading down and in, or by inserting the grid-like superstructure

of an incomplete or destroyed building (Various Distances Apart I, 2008-10) and

leaving this open to the elements it is part of.

Currin’s narrative language is metaphysical in character with the roles of darkness

and light orchestrating how our eyes journey inside each work. He presents man’s

presence and quests as endless spiritual journeys with the landscape as touchstone.

Whether headlands, tidal flats, colonial landscape or intersecting mountains, Currin

particularises the place and locates the viewer. “Meditation on Orpheus III” is

imbued with the profound sense of being down on the beach itself. As the painting

opens up out of the veiled background islands emerge and a suggested path of

buttery light walks across the water to the viewer’s feet.

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

1 Fire at Ephesus I (2010) 7,000

2 Fire at Ephesus II (2010) 7,000

3 Various Distances Apart III (2010) 8,000

4 Meditation on Orpheus III (2008-10) 14,000

5 Smoke and Dreaming I (2007-10) 9,000

6 Smoke and Dreaming II (2010) 9,000

7 Various Distances Apart I (2008-10) 9,000

8 Smoke and Dreaming (2010) 3,000

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

Garry Currin 2011 CV Milford Galleries Dunedin www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

P a g e | 1

GARRY CURRIN b. 1952, lives Warkworth

Various Distances Apart I (2008-10)

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 in 1995, 1997,

1998, and in 2004 when he won the 'people's choice' vote. 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 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

2000 Winners Show, Westshore Arts Centre, Auckland

1999 100 x 100, McPherson Gallery, Auckland


P a g e | 3

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