The Big Boys - Exhibition Opening

The Big Boys

An exhibition including 5 of our top male artists.

Zeke Wolf
Zeke is a local Piha artist who has been involved in the production of ceramics and painting for 30 odd years. His paintings are always imaginary landscapes of environmental issues, like the loss of habitat and native bird species becoming critically endangered which provide the seed from which the imagination can work. A long-standing interest in painting, coupled with a lively imagination, was hugely aided by doing a Bachelor of Design (Hons) at Unitec. Zeke has been with the gallery since the beginning (2000) and many art collectors seek out his work.

Andy Mardell
Andy a local Piha artist, began woodcarving around 20 years ago. His preference is to use New Zealand native timbers, in particular swamp kauri root-balls as the grain of this wood provides many different colours which when carved and oiled takes on the appearance of seaweed or the cosmic swirls of the sun. Andy has worked through many phases like the “Geometric series” of sculptured geometric shapes with the inspiration behind the pieces varying from nature to science fiction. Andy wants to encourage people to connect with nature through art. Nature presents its forms and he interprets them, this creative and symbiotic relationship is unique tribute to the New Zealand trees.

Sefton Rani
Sefton is a full-time self-taught artist working out of Piha. He sees himself as a sculptural painter and views his work as postmodern Pacific art. Sefton is of Cook Island heritage and his work enables him to explore his “Pacificness”. He refers to completed works as “Urban tapa” or “industrial tapa” which is influenced by traditional tapa, carving, tattoo and tivaevae. His work is primarily created with solidified paint skins, which he uses to investigate the materiality of paint and how far it can be pushed. The work often utilises text, found objects, combustion and natural pigments such as pounamu dust, charcoal or rust. These aesthetics enable him to ‘paint time’ and allow the historical journey of the media to enhance the visual value of each piece created.

Gareth Price
Gareth has been painting seriously since 2007 and has worked primarily in the world of magical realism and surrealism. There is a great deal of profound knowledge to be found in stories, dreams, fairy tales and the world of the unconscious and he attempts to reach into this, primarily through symbolism. His subject matter has always been mostly about how people get through difficulties in their lives. Gareth’s paintings are full of fine detail often with single brush stoke creating an image.

John Madden
Potter and painter, John was born in 1953 to a second-generation West Coast coal-mining family in which Gaelic was spoken. In 1929 John moved to Karekare and he painted one of his largest figurative mining canvases, smoko, Sullivan Mine, Denniston. By mid-1990’s his paintings had become heavily abstract and heavily worked with metallic finishes. John’s paintings express both his passion and respect for the land in its physical and spiritual nature. They are rich in colour, drama and texture and often hint at the brooding, emotive character, which typifies his very personal and painterly response to a land he never tires of painting. “I’ll go on painting this landscape and mining it for its visual gold for a long time yet”.