Latest exhibition opens at Te Atamira
Lyrics and Lines launched at Te Atamira on Saturday in a bold fashion. Arts Laureate John Reynolds created a live wall painting in the lead up to the exhibition, that will run until February next year. It playfully explores creative mark making and asks viewers to consider different types of patterns in their lives and environments.
The exhibition features the work of six leading contemporary artists from Australasia, each showcasing unique approaches to the use of lines and marks in their art. It is inspired by the Chartwell 50th Anniversary Project 2024, which is one of Aotearoa’s most significant collections of contemporary art. In addition to Reynolds’ work there will be art on display from Ani O'Neill, Gordon Walters, Veronica Herber, Julian Hooper, and Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, all of whom are featured in the Chartwell Collection.
Reynolds was excited to be asked to create the large-scale wall art and is no stranger to painting in front of the public. He has completed pieces directly onto walls many times in the past, including at the National Art Gallery in Wellington that was 70ft long and 30ft tall. He emphasised how much he enjoys engaging with the public when painting and he values the ambiguity in his art that stimulates the viewers interpretation.
“I’m thrilled with the opportunity and I like the confluence of being in a place like Queenstown with those extraordinary lumps of rock just out the door. To be working on a very large wall, it seems that that sort of synergy, of largeness, bigness and theatrically is somehow calling me,” Reynolds says.
Oftentimes when painting he engages with the public and it’s “children who are quickest to make an observation.” He always takes it as a compliment, whether people are commenting positively or negatively as he feels there’s often a slight apprehension when it comes to the public responding to art, often feeling that their opinion will be naïve or wrong.
“I do think it’s important that contemporary artists have the opportunity to connect with a wider audience. Otherwise you end up working in something closer to a kind of silo, where you’re working with echoes. All artists have a nascent ear for response and criticism because there’s no point in doing this unless you feel that you’re advancing something in the broader culture, or connect in some way with historical precedents and so forth.
“The performance aspect, just like musicians, you seek the to make the connection and so it can’t be an exercise in the cul-de-sac of self-satisfaction. It doesn’t work like that.”
Prior to landing in town, Reynolds had been working in New York – the contrast between a the concrete jungle of New York and the rugged mountains and remoteness of New Zealand has been inspirational. When creating pieces, he has to make decisions ahead of time about what he can achieve in the space and timeframe, in this case he had five days to create the work. He emphasises the desire to create something different to what he’s done in the past, not wanting to reaffirm a known, performative outcome but rather coming up with something that takes him somewhere else. He also explains that those in the arts community are always keen to allow their work to percolate and allow the public’s imagination to do its thing.
“I’m constantly searching for a very productive form of ambiguity, of trying to position a series of shapes and moves to maximise the viewers sense of what’s at play, ‘is it a map? Is it a plan? Is it a drawing? What are we looking at here?.’ You have to give the audience some roadmap in, at the same time you wish them to do some of the heavy lifting with regard to interpretation and so forth.”
Pop by Te Atamira to see the collection until 9 February 2025. To find out more information about all the workshops and events that are on surrounding Lyrics and Lines over the next five months, you can head to teatamira.nz/events/lyrics-and-lines
