Two new shows opened on Friday giving viewers a unique and immersive experience of colour: ‘Chromatic Investigations and Paintings from the 90s’, the fourth major exhibition by senior New Zealand painter Milan Mrkusich (now in his 80s), and FOREVER(S) by Ben Buchanan, who graduated in 1993, and is currently working in coloured vinyl which he cuts into rectangles and lays directly on the wall. ..
Milan Mrkusich was not able attend the opening, but son Lewis said he was “very emotional that the exhibition has finally been installed,” especially as they had both been planning it since the 1990s, and it features a series of works never before shown in public.
Lewis described the installation, which includes a dramatic custom built curved space as “pretty well perfect”, and acknowledged the efforts of Aratoi staff and local firms B & L Construction, and 3D Creative to achieve this.
Most people will be familiar with at least one work by Milan Mrkusich – his monumental mural of coloured glass panels on the south face of Te Papa. The artist is quoted as saying “Colour is a fact…...colour is a life force,” and this exhibition gives people the chance to immerse themselves in saturated colour, and experience the rhythms and energies of colour that so the artist: the way colours appear to change, recede and project when laid alongside others, or featured individually on a large scale.
“My father has gone through most every permutation that’s possible with colour in a 60 year career, and you are only seeing a small part of it,” said Lewis. “The experience of colour is something that everyone can enjoy, it is not a highbrow experience.”
Many at the opening related strong responses to the works, being attracted to particular canvases and colour combinations. The joyously coloured canvases in the curved space even prompted one visitor to dance!
Art writer Ed Hanfling, who gave a floor talk at the weekend, highlighted Milan Mrkuisch’s wide interests in music, alchemy, and the philosophy of Jung, describing how he believed colour also had the potential to transport us to a higher realm.
While at one level highly calculated and logical, Mrkusich’s paintings have an undeniable energy, feeling and emotion that are there if visitors allow themselves some time and peace with the works.
Currently showing at Aratoi: 'Milan Mrkusich: Chromatic Investigations and Paintings from the 90s’, until 31 Jan; 'Ben Buchanan: FOREVER(S)’, until 31 Jan; Breadcraft Wairarapa Schools Art, until 2 Nov.
Wairarapa Word this Sunday
Justine Eldred is a multitalented Greytown woman who combines the role of wife and mother with being a dancer, chorepgrapher and writer. In the past three years, she has written choreographed, directed and danced in three dance theatre shows with Tangle Community Dance (an all-inclusive company that she founded) called ‘Sylvie's Last’, ‘When the Poet Dreamed an Angel’, and ‘Fire and Water’. A portion of her first novel, The Crying Sea, has been published online, and a children's book called ‘Nigh’ is in the making. Wairarapa Word at Almo’s Books, Carterton, Sun 2 Nov, 3-5pm. Koha.
Wairarapa Museum of Art and History