Work by senior New Zealand painter Milan Mrkusich is currently on display in a major show for which Aratoi is the sole venue. This show, and an accompanying exhibition by Ben Buchanan, are providing visitors with an opportunity to experience colour in an intense, uninterrupted way.
Now in his 80s and having rarely travelled outside of New Zealand, Mrkusich has kept himself informed of international art developments throughout his career and was familiar with writings on the dynamics of and perception of colour by early abstract painters such as Josef Albers, Kandinsky and Mondrian. These artists explored how colours appear to move forward or back on a flat surface, how they can be linked to music and universal symbols, and can generate powerful feelings on their own, without being used to describe objects in the ‘real’ world.
Despite this knowledge, the artist’s son Lewis pointed out that his father’s paintings were the result of an intuitive process that came from “decades of experience as a colourist and an artist, not from any colour theory”.
Viewing the work can also be intuitive and experiential, says director Alice Hutchison: “Colour transcends language. Theory and narrative are irrelevant.” And so it turned out, when I asked visitors for their responses to the show….
Tusiata, age 8: “I would never have thought of putting some of these colours together but now I’m going to try it in my art. It’s crazy…but I like crazy.”
Ben: “I’m drawn to the blue and ochre panels, they make me think of the beach and sky. I like how the disparate colours go together to make a really pleasing collective whole. I’m impressed with the curved space and it will be cool to come in the morning when the sun is coming into the gallery.”
Janet: “I love the royal purple, that’s what leapt out for me as soon as I came into the gallery. It’s a mystical colour and it’s subtle at the same time. It gives a much stiller feeling than the others."
Leanne: “I like the salmon pink colour. It’s just an unusual, unexpected colour so it captures my interest, and the combination with the orange is very unexpected too. Some of the colours look three dimensional and pop out, which I like…. Colour is good. I think we are a bit scared of colour sometimes in New Zealand.”
Willie, age 11: “I like how [the artist] has played with colour. I think the paintings are like pixels. It reminds me of Minecraft. I can see faces and animals. I see a sort of a cat – an ocelot – in this one.”
Exhibitions at Aratoi: 'Milan Mrkusich: Chromatic Investigations and Paintings from the 90s’, until 31 Jan; 'Ben Buchanan: FOREVER(S)’, until 31 Jan; ‘Little Jewels’, 5 Dec - 14 Dec; New work by Dennis Handyside, until 31 Jan.
