 | 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)
Born Wanganui, New Zealand 1952. Currin has been exhibiting his work since 1976. The time he devotes to painting and his exhibiting programme has been gathering momentum in recent years. 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. He lives north of Auckland.
(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. | |
