Marc Blake: The New Landscape
15 December 2015 - 21 February 2016
Photography Gallery
Marc Blake, Swimmer (2015), Acrylic, colour pencil on board
Marc Blake is an international artist. After growing up in Auckland, he spent 5 years in Japan, 3 years in Sydney, 6 months in South Korea and is now based in Queenstown. The experiences, concepts, memories, cultures and environment from all of these places naturally informs and influences his work. Despite coming from this Asia-Pacific region and having a deep, lifelong interest in East Asian art as well as European art history, the landscape paintings Blake creates move away from the tradition of trying to capture, or define a specific place. Instead they are an exploration and reflection of our new landscape where technology, time, culture, environment, reality, imagination, and creation are combined as never before.
The New Landscape features selected paintings from the Collection since 2007 when the Trust began collecting Blake’s work. Alongside these are also several recent works reflecting the evolution of Blake's practice over the past decade. It explores and combines digital technological developments, as well as reinterpreting the traditional language and history of painting and drawing.