Karl Maughan's colourful garden paintings go public

Media Release

Summer comes early at Pataka Art + Museum with new exhibition, Karl Maughan – A Clear Day

Internationally renowned artist Karl Maughan is to hold his first major solo exhibition in a public gallery since his move to Wellington at Pataka Art + Museum in Porirua City.

It will be a riot of summer colour as visitors get the chance to see his huge, mesmerising, hyperrealistic paintings of gardens in full flower in the exhibition which opens on Sunday September 28.

Maughan, returned to Auckland from an extended OE in 2005, and then back to Wellington, his place of birth, a couple of years ago.

This exhibition of his paintings – dating from his early student days in 1987 right up to 2004 – leads us on a journey through the garden paths of his work.

The large impressionistic paintings have been gathered together from both private and public collections in Palmerston North and Wellington including the centrepiece of the exhibition from Te Papa’s collection - A Clear Day, 1999 which is a six-canvas panorama spanning over ten metres.

Other works on display include a vibrant painting of rhododendrons at Cross Hills Gardens in Kimbolton, near Palmerston North.

Maughan spent his childhood in Palmerston North and visited these gardens with his mother, so when photographer Catherine Russ sent him photographs of the gardens, he used them as the subject for this impressive floral explosion of colour. The painting also symbolises the geographical moves Maughan’s career has taken him on, from childhood Palmerston North to Auckland for art school, from Auckland to London and back to New Zealand.

The exhibition runs from Sunday 28 September until Sunday 8 February 2015 at Pataka Art + Museum, cnr Parumoana & Norrie Sts, Porirua.

www.pataka.org.nz

ENDS

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