Mother and Child Reunion

I saw a show of Garry Winogrand's in New York in July, 1988. I was twenty and New York was the first place overseas I went to. From the rural province of Hawkes' Bay, New Zealand to New York. It was quite a contrast!

It just so happened a show of Garry Winogrand's was on at the MOMA. At twenty I didn't know who he was, but, I think, this show had a profound effect on me in terms of composition.

In his photos something was happening in every nook and cranny of the image. A little shoe popping into the lower left of the picture or a cat swinging out of the picture by the tail. All the elements working in this incredible, sometimes manic, harmony.

Although my photo here is very different in content to his, the importance of the placement of every little, no matter how insignificant, is still there.

Garry Winogrand

"In the end maybe the correct language would be how the fact of putting four edges around a collection of information transforms it. A photograph is not what was photographed it is something else." Garry Winogrand

When I was a Hospital, 2010

I took this in Dunedin when I was walking between Brett McDowell's gallery and Jeffrey Harris' studio. It's not a far walk and the old stone shadowy buildings give it a strange other worldiness. It feels like you're walking in an old black and white movie.

It was strange seeing these words written on this building. I had a show at the time with Brett and he had in his office, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, quite an early picture of mine called, "When I was Little."

Brett had relayed to me the story of how one day "When I was Little" fell off his office wall and the glass, in the frame, broke. Brett said he actually couldn't help worry if something bad had happened to me.

Attracted Colony-Bath St Gallery

I have a show opening on Tuesday 5.30pm at Bath St Gallery, Parnell, Auckland.
It's on for around three weeks. Hope you can make it.

David Bowie as Aladin Sane

 

My 2011 portrait of David Bowie as Aladin Sane has gone into the James Wallace Art Collection. The James Wallace site is well worth a wonder. http://collection.wallaceartstrust.org.nz/collection/highlights.js

I'm touched in my reading about Bowies' relationship with his schizophrenic  brother, Terry Burns.  It seems they were close in their younger years.

Terry introduced Bowie to modern jazz when he was growing up. Burns, who was Bowie's mother's son from a previous marriage, was severely schizophrenic. Burns killed himself in 1985 after escaping the grounds of the hospital and laying down on some railroad tracks.... He was 47. 

Bowie wrote several songs about his brother's struggle with mental illness, including "All The Madmen" and "Jump They Say."

There had been a lot of mental illness on Bowie's mother's side so Bowie by 23, he felt the odds were possibly high of him going mad. This naturally terrified him and would be the catalyst for much of his excellent work in the 1970s. His songs dealing with identity, control, lunacy and fear; devising personae as various means of escape, as conduits for insanity.

Clairmont/Maddox

This work sold last weekend at Auckland's Bath St Gallery. I'm very pleased about this as I feel it's a very special one. Allen Maddox lived in Napier just down the road from where I grew up. Clairmont's work was shown at the Napier art museum when I was a teenager. Both very special people.

Attracted Colony

I have a show, entitled Attracted Colony, opening May 30th at Bath St Gallery, Auckland.
It will feature new, unique handcoloured photochemical drawings.
The show will run May 30-June 22nd.

I hope you can make it.