Stuart Shepherd on Andrew Blythe, Painter

     The paintings of Andrew Blythe can be looked at, from across a room , but usually they ask to be read, like a book, and they require the viewer to move closer and take a little more time.
     They can be read sometimes in a linear way; when the meandering naughts and crosses lead the eye on a trail that mixes the deliberate with the random (Imagine a business man marching to work but being waylaid as each step offers a choice; to take another step or skip one.) 
      And they can be read in a non-linear way when his painterly layering technique, like layering one sheet of chicken wire on top of another, requires us to decipher which brush strokes went down first. To engage with his work in this way again demands a closer look and a little more time.
   Andrews work often plays with, or rather it studies, the balance of purpose and chance, or control and accident. Often the chance/purpose balance is simply contained in the nature of paint, and against this Andrew tests his ability with a brush. (And Andrew is very able). For example, he might test the way the paint dribbles off an overloaded brush, but not so much that it runs off everywhere, but just enough so that it can be repeated to make a pattern. Or the way a brushed line of acrylic paint can run back over itself, as it dries, to create a maze-like palimpsest through which we can see glimpses of the original surface, like a birds eye -view of the most concentrated fly-overs on the Auckland motorway system.
      And Andrew has written about cities, and their unstoppable momentum. Perhaps it is the city, its energy and its process of layering, overlapping and cancelling out that finds expression in Andrews work. Although I am not at all suggesting that the motif of the negative , the X, means his work sends out nihilistic messages.

What I get from the work is optimistic: an artist absorbed in a process of discovery and finding voice in the language of paint.

(Stuart Shepherd: Wellington artist, academic, and curator .)

NZ artists on show in Paris
(April 2009)

An exhibition featuring the work of thirteen New Zealand artists and photographers is already causing a stir among the “art brut”  (self-taught art/outsider art) community before its opening at Galerie Impaire in Paris on April 30.

Curated by Wellington artist, academic and curator Stuart Shepherd, Home Grown: New Work from New Zealand will run throughout May. It features the work of Andrew Blythe (Auckland); Martin Thompson (Dunedin); Sarah Jane Parton, John Lake, Robert Rapson, Reece Tong, Colin Korovin, Ray Ritchie, Daniel Phillips (all Wellington); James Robinson (Wanganui); the late Jim Dornan (Wairoa); and Peter Wareing  and Maia MacDonald (New Plymouth).

Galerie Impaire is a branch of the Creative Growth Art Centre in Oakland, California, which Shepherd describes as the “most established and progressive art workshop” in North America.

“Being associated with the Creative Growth Art Centre  is an honour,” he says. “It’s also a valuable connection for creative spaces and self-taught artists in New Zealand.”

Shepherd hosted the New Zealand stand at the 2009 New York Outsider Art Fair in January, which was attended by European, North American and Asian dealers and collectors.

Most of the New Zealand artists profiled at the New York fair sold work. For instance, all of Rapson’s ceramic ships were sold and he received 15 commissions for new work.

Robert Rapson, Reece Tong, Colin Korovin, Ray Ritchie and Daniel Phillips are all clients of the Creative Business Support Service, a partnership between Arts Access Aotearoa and the Ministry of Social Development. The aim of this pilot service is to create income opportunities for artists dependent on Work and Income New Zealand benefits within the Wellington region.
  
Marianne Taylor, Executive Director of Arts Access Aotearoa, says the Creative Business Support Service has been extremely fortunate to have had Stuart Shepherd driving this international market opportunity.

“Stuart’s commitment to profiling and marketing the work of New Zealand self-taught artists in the international arena is amazing,” she says.
 
Shepherd says the nostalgic quality of Rapson's work appealed to New York buyers. "They were delighted by the authenticity and detail of his reproductions, and the obvious knowledge and affection that Robert feels for his subjects.

"The fact that Robert can do commissions for people is a bonus. It provides personal connections between the buyer, the artist and the work, often encapsulating memories of family travel."

Originally published by Arts Access Aoteaora.