Image: Logan Moffat, Elam (2017) Oil on canvas, 1300 x 1800mm
Little Blue Creatures and Other Things
Guy Howard-Smith
Long Gallery
Tuesday 22 May – Sunday 01 July, 2018
Little Blue Creatures and Other Things features Guy Howard-Smith's 20-metre mural hung on the walls of the Long Gallery. Howard-Smith draws from a range of techniques, referencing hand-painted film posters, Chinese scrolls, book illustrations as well as contemporary painting practices. The work creates an open-ended narrative dealing loosely with the theme of human interaction with the environment.
"Our environment is connected to our existence in every way, but we increasingly view it as the 'other' or something to be manipulated or feared and as a result, must be kept at arm's length."
The narrative of the work is designed so it can be read in multiple ways. Spanning the length of the Long Gallery, one can never view the entirety of the work at once. A giant story book of sorts, we must walk around the corner to see what comes next. By creating this injection of physicality into the viewing experience Howard-Smith probes us to become one with our environments.
Guy Howard-Smith grew up in Titirangi and spent time in the Waitakere Ranges tramping and surfing at West Coast beaches. He now lives in Dunedin and since graduating from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2003 he has been exhibiting regularly within New Zealand. Howard-Smith's work combines fantastic imagery with experimental painting and drawing techniques. Howard-Smith uses painting as a tool to mirror reality with pictorial harmony. His paintings explore the use of myth and its role in grouping human perceptions of the world. The examination of constructed moral codes through experience and consciousness is central to his work.