Garry Currin
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." (1)
"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." (2)
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 2004
where Currin's Landscape Without Moses was the
winner of the 'peoples choice' vote. His work is included in
various significant collections.
(1) Paul Field, 'Seascapes capture power', Otago Daily Times,
14 June 2001.
(2) David Eggleton, 'Garry Currin The Painter as Salvage Artist',
Art New Zealand No. 94, Autumn 2000.
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