17 June – 1 August
Long Gallery
Artist Talk: 14 July, 1pm
Opening Night: 14 July, 6pm
Born in Andover, Hampshire, England (1947), Anthony Davies attended the Winchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. Davies is a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE), which was established in London in 1888.
Davies moved permanently to New Zealand in 1994, that year he was artist in residence at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. Since 2002 he has lived at Aramoho, Whanganui, where he founded Hotspur Studios. There he produces relief, intaglio, lithographic and screenprints.
A Passage of My Mind presents three series developed in his Whanganui studio in 2008-2010, and more recently in 2020 and 2021
The series Aotearoa 2008-2010 comprises 18 large drypoint etchings, incised on acetate (45x61cm), with a focus on social issues of local/national importance. Davies takes his inspiration from the media, making drawings of various elements from newspapers and other sources. Notable events are depicted, such as the occupation of Moutoa Gardens in Whanganui (1995) and the Hikoi land march of 2004 in response to the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Overlaying each of these finely drawn scenes is an amorphous red shape - a harken to the artist Mark Braunias - lending an incongruity to the serious subjects. Further, they are symbols of Davies’s interest in youth popular culture, particularly summer-time music festivals.
Marathon Man 2020 is a series of 53 stone lithographs (each 13 x 24cm). The title was given as Davies likens art making to a marathon - a lifetime commitment. Here he turns to international events and issues that feature in a long news cycle. Featured in several prints are American race relation flash-points from 2020, culminating in the tragedy of George Floyd, all sourced from the media. Part of the series are prints produced in monochrome - browns, blues or black. Notable are his experimentations with bright colours printed in diagonal or horizontal bands that creates a disruptive effect on the drawn image.
A Passage of My Mind 2021 is Davies’s latest series, featuring 20 linocuts (each 30 x 30cm). They were produced during the lockdown period in the Covid pandemic. Many of the prints are portraits of well-known figures from New Zealand and overseas - Donald Trump, Greta Thunberg and Jacinda Ardern. Others represent major events such as the Christchurch mosque shootings and the Whakaari/White Island eruption of 2019. These prints are uniform in format with a strong graphic quality. Each one is square with the main subject placed within a circular frame, outlined in red and white on a dark ground.
The Hotspur Studios website (www.hotspurstudios.co.nz) has a complete listing and reproductions of his series produced in New Zealand, Cardiff and Belfast dating from 1978 – 2021.
A list of images from the series:
MARATHON MAN-19 (2020)
31 X 24 CM Stone Lithography
No individual titles
DEDICATED TO JOHN & PAT MCMILLAN
A Passage of my Mind (2021)
30x30cm linocuts
AOTEAROA (2008/10)
45x61cm, Drypoint Etchings
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT TAYLOR
THE DON
REMEMBRANCE-1
REMEMBRANCE-2
GRETA THUNBERG
FAIRY DUST
COVID-1
COVID-2
RIP KEITH FLINT
BOBBY DYLAN
CHOPPER
BLACK LIVES MATTER
WHITE LIVES MATTER
DISASTER
TESTING
WHAAKAR - WHITE ISLAND
STEPHANIE - SURVIVOR
CHILD LABOUR - 1
CHILD LABOUR - 2
RIP - ROBERT
TENTH ANNIVERSARY
DEDICATED TO DAVIES’ MOTHER IN HER NINETIETH YEAR
Hikoi
Youth Culture
Hikoi - Beehive
Rural Scene
Hikoi Protestors
Selling the Dream
Motua Gardens - Rememberance
Police Search
Barmy Army ‘08
Chilling Out
Pop Festival
Media Frenzy
Battle of Napier Hill
Police 10/7 Suspects
Campsite
Sales, Sales
Stock Exchange