Eion Stevens: A Collection 1980–2012
13 November, 2012 - 3 February, 2013
Main Galleries

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Exhibition Opening Monday 12 November 2012

Artist Talk Tuesday 13 November 2012

This exhibition showcases the Arts Trust’s holdings of paintings by Eion Stevens, collected over the past 32 years. It is a testament to the breadth and quality of Eion Stevens’ artistic practice and a celebration of Stevens as an important figure in New Zealand painting.

Eion Steven, Explaining Pictures to a Dead Hare (1983), Oil on Board

This painting has gone through a great metamorphosis from a start in Auckland. The art references on the wall include Larry Poons, Alan Davie and myself, with guest appearances by a light bulb and wall socket which turn up later in my career. The title and basic theme are a direct steal from a performance piece by Joseph Beuys.

-Eion Stevens, October 2012

Eion Stevens, Bodyguard (1991), Oil on prepared board

At this time graphic design elements started to appear, stimulated by lithographic printing at Limeworks in Christchurch. The positive/negative compositional scheme also harks back to my original training in wood block printing. This lends itself to the amputation motif, which was pure convenience – no dark secrets lie behind these dancing limbs.

-Eion Stevens, October 2012

Eion Stevens, Trick (1994), Oil on prepared board

The influence described more fully in Bodyguard continues in the cloaked figure drinking from a tankard on a table. It holds the card reference in the title. It seems I can never resist inserting a door somewhere, this time turning the player into a mobile wigwam.

-Eion Stevens, October 2012

Eion Stevens, Fall (1997), Oil on prepared board

From an improvisation on a collage base, some paintings exploit ambiguity in the subject matter. What is a hat could be a shrieking head and arms, and significantly, if the falling figure is a doomed Icarus, he is plummeting from the door of an airborne office block.

-Eion Stevens, October 2012

Eion Stevens, Amanuensis (2007), Oil on board

This title defines somebody who acts as a transcriber of another’s creative work. I had in mind the relationship between the blind composer Frederick Delius, and the man who wrote down his musical scores in later life. My interpretation of this bond lies in the eyeless ‘singing’ shape vocalising to the red square with the ‘sighted’ punch holes, the composer has been given a perch for extra comfort.

-Eion Stevens, October 2012

Eion Stevens, Sea Egg (2003), Oil on prepared board

Showing the dominance of the collage technique, this painting relies on suggestion over full disclosure. Shapes that could be ventilator funnels, sails and rowing boats, add up to a studied improvisation on some arcane nautical theme. The title is willfully grabbed from the appearance of a yellow disc at bottom left.

-Eion Stevens, October 2012