6 – 30 March 2019
Philippa Blair has spent much of the past 25 years living and working in America. The bright punch of California is discernible in her paintings’ vivid colour and chaotic energy. She recently returned to New Zealand permanently and this important body of work represents her first major solo exhibition since her return.
Blair’s marks smack head-on into each other, piling up like a multi-vehicle collision. They are, in fact, carefully choreographed arrangements that resonate with emotion and physicality.
In Counter-flow, Blair challenges structure delivering a dynamic abstraction that might be described as “outside the current”. The exhibition title refers to the scientific term for fluids going in different directions and is also a reference to the way her pigments, oil and acrylic resist each other.
In addition to a series of large-scale paintings, this exhibition includes a number of sculptural works – wayward constructions that seem to have leapt from the canvas to become three dimensional “beings”.
Counter-flow is the product of a lifetime of painting, over 100 exhibitions and a feverishly active and agile mind and body.
