The Tor is a small island just off the beach from Waiake Beach, Torbay, Auckland. I wondered one day; what makes something available for me to take or off limits to all? I decided to lay claim to this small outcropping and asserted that ownership by adding a letterbox so that I had an address, a location for all to know. Then I built a stylish villa upon it and the rest is now history.
the Island series
This series began as a distillation of our own small New Zealand islands into an even smaller environment. The tableau's compress the interactions between the native wildlife and the colonial immigrants that became the new locals. Each island artwork varies in content but all hold the same concerns... That an island is a fragile ecosystem and each participant affects the overall health, resources and sustainability of that small environment
exhibit
2020 • Island Nation • (solo exhibition)
Island Nation recalls the themes of western symbolist painting, alongside the techniques and drama of the 18C Romantic painters. This new series of paintings presents a variety of isolated islands with a range of familiar local habitations. In each painting the oceans, structures, mood and time of day all vary, they are a string of atomised islands in flux, connected by the oceans which encompass them and the relentless course of history.
These quiet islands evoke mystery with their ambiguous narrative content, allowing the mood and atmosphere – along with the objects and structures within them – to speak directly to the viewer. This effect is nostalgic and deeply familiar, while retaining a sense of enigma and other-worldliness. Each painting leaves evidence of human occupation without any sign of the individuals who might inhabit these spaces which is where the intrigue and mystery lies; allowing these works to be seen as metaphor for personal journey – creating a window-like view to an inner world – a place for self-reflection.
It is notable in some of these new works, large pendant like objects are being suspended into the paintings from beyond the frame. These flat and sometimes graphic objects, on one hand seem at odds with the scale and sensual painterly handling of oil in the scenes below – yet they also function symbiotically, as if to suggest these isolated group of islands are part of a much larger story.
James Brown
Foenander Gallery
A Night on the Town 
Amorphous 
Echo 
Foreshadow 
Open Home 
Perch 
Suntrap 
The Tor 
Herne House
Images - Arts Diary