“Currin offers the landscape as a dream state. It is hard to pin down the locations he depicts; each seems to be a fusion of plausible aspects and possible glimpses.” (1)

Garry Currin’s veiled landscapes are darkly radiant. The oil paints are layered, tone on tone, to create rich depths of hue, and variations in light and perspective. Rather than laying out familiar forms of land and sea and sky, Currin captures simultaneously the solidity of the landscape, and its mutability. The viewer must discover the works little by little, moving from one subtle signpost to another.

In February 2017, he was one of 22 foreign artists from 13 countries who joined 29 Korean artists to exhibit in the PyeongChang Biennale in Gangneung, South Korea, the location for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Titled The Five Moons: Return of the Nameless and Unknown, the exhibition explored multisensory approaches to the environment, and the value of the hidden, everyday lives individuals neglected in the flow of modern history.

Across the Tasman, Garry Currin has twice been a finalist for the Lloyd Rees Art Prize, an independently judged, biannual acquisitive prize with a value of AUD 20,000. Born in Wanganui in 1952, Currin has been painting and exhibiting his work throughout the country for over 40 years.

1. David Eggleton, “Garry Currin: Various Distances Apart,” Art New Zealand, Winter 2011, No. 148, p. 20.