Exhibition offers host of colour

Stefan Dunlop | Peter Hackett | Nic Phillipson Colour!

So frequently it is commented that New Zealand art is too often dark and broody in its colour palettes, this exhibition will warm the audience with a blast of vibrancy in the middle of winter.

Artists Peter Hackett, Stefan Dunlop and Nic Phillipson each have a feature show opening at Fisher Galleries Auckland this July 26 th .

Peter Hackett has become one of Fisher’s top selling artists in recent years with his luscious Honeymooners’ Bed series. These works are extremely tactile with paint as thick as 1cm from the surface in areas, Peter works in an all-over technique with very rarely a horizon line in sight. His subject matter is drawn from the wild flowers growing on the sides of the highway, he comments on this series: ‘…notions of scent, texture, colour, the sublime and the incomparable beauty of nature are hinted at in these paintings.’

Stefan Dunlop’s contemporary figurative painting explores aspects of representation. While the subject matter could be anything (a still-life study, a copy of a Rembrandt, or a popular press image) Dunlop downplays the narrative element in his work.

Instead he insists that it is not necessarily what he represents but how he represents it that is the key to his practice. Dunlop’s recent work is, in his own words, a kind of ‘patchy painting’. He has begun to move away from the linear and spatial explorations of his earlier work and use large, solid blocks (or patches) of colour as a means of building space. New Zealand born, living in Noosa, Stefan has had a booming career in Australia, this will be his second exhibition in Auckland.

Nic Phillipson’s works are based on the specific graphical nature of billposter advertising. The body of work is intentionally meant to present a paradox to comment on the pervasive nature of modern advertising, and values of commercialism with in both general society and the art community. It also draws attention to the artistic merits of graphic design, which are often overlooked. These works are a continuation of the ideas and techniques developed as part of Phillipson’s final year of BFA study at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 2006.

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