Julian Dashper. The early Dutch works

Julian Dashper. The early Dutch works.

Sue Crockford Gallery, 17 February ­ 13 March 2004 Opening Tuesday 17 Feb 5.30 ­ 7pm 2 Queen St, Auckland

This exhibition provides an opportunity to look back at Julian Dashper¹s career. Although critics over the last 23 years have linked him with numerous artistic movements, from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism, Dashper has always rejected association with ''isms.'' And just as he has inhabited the space between changing stylistic trends, his signature works have consistently operated in an evocative zone between sculpture and painting. Using strategies from each, yet never fully within the confines of either, Dashper's enterprise is perhaps most akin to a form architecture.

It also goes on to suggest how everything fits together ‹ how the dazzling colours, delicate surfaces and sensual geometries first developed over two decades ago still inform his work today.

Julian Dashper has shown his work in more than 45 exhibitions throughout the Netherlands since the early nineties. These exhibitions have included a variety of venues from artist run spaces and dealer galleries to the prestigious Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, which owns one of his paintings

Dashper¹s affinity for things European led him to first exhibit in the Netherlands in 1993 and, over the last 10 years, he has consistently travelled there since to partake in further exhibitions. Works to be shown in his forthcoming exhibition at the Sue Crockford Gallery include several drum skins from 1993 that predate his better known series using adhesive vinyl. Dashper first made these pieces for exhibition in the Netherlands, which he refers to as "the first abstract drumheads", directly after completing ŒThe Big Bang Theory¹. Also included will be sculptures and paintings never exhibited before in New Zealand. The pieces to be exhibited display subtle new twists, yet demonstrate the same attention to shape and colour that has characterised his art for decades.

Julian Dashper is an Auckland based artist who also spends considerable time in the USA, Europe and Australia. In 2001 he was awarded a senior Fulbright scholarship and a residency at the prestigious Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. He has exhibited extensively in New Zealand since 1980 and has work held in all major public collections in New Zealand.

Julian Dashper will attend the opening.

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