Acrylic on A3 watercolour paper

Ending the week with some good news…

I found out yesterday I’m one of the finalists in this year’s Parkin Drawing Prize. The last time I had work in the Parkin Prize was with my wall drawing Ape. This year I’ve entered 24 oil stick drawings. The winners will be announced at the official awards evening at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts here in Wellington on 16 July.

APE, 2014
acrylic paint wall drawing
450 × 950mm

I’ve had several interesting conversations this week: one with a theatre producer about the challenges of making a living as a creative person in Wellington (or anywhere for that matter), another on receiving useful criticism of your work and a third touching on the challenges of how to communicate shifts in your practice.

Showing someone one of the new drawings I’ve been making (email #424) elicited a positive and surprised response – the work being perceived as a large leap from my flat, hard edged work of the last view years.

I forget many people who know my work aren’t necessarily aware of what I was making before I started my Masters, let alone before I came to New Zealand. While these new drawings feel quite familiar to me, a natural development of my previous work, I can see how they may be alien to people.

As I find the words to go with these new works part of the challenge is placing the new drawings in context of my existing practice, acknowledging what people already know (or don’t know) about my work.

Watch this space…

It’s about the work, not the money.

There are no shortcuts worth taking in painting – you have to get in the studio and put in the hours.

Travel every couple of years (ideally overseas) is good for me. A change of scene opens the mind as well as the eyes.

Go and see the best art you can, as often as possible.

Never paint drunk.

Dried figs and sunshine. Coffee machine coffee in brown plastic cups. And some scaffolding.

It changed the way I saw the world.

Gerwald Rockenschaub Échafaudage, 1992 Metal 300 x 1650 x 610 cm Villa Arson, Nice, France

Presented in the monographic exhibition Gerwald Rockenschaub, Villa Arson, April 4 - May 14 1992

All rights reserved Gerwald Rockenschaub and Jean Brasille, Villa Arson, for the photography