Wayne Youle, Capt. Pat of the HMS freedom on the eve of his maiden voyage to the sun (2014), Acrylic on canvas
Strangely Familiar: Portraits by Wayne Youle
January 23 — March 18, 2018
Curated by Helen Kedgley
Toured by New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pukenga Whakaata
For the exhibition Strangely Familiar at the Pah Homestead, Wayne Youle has created a fascinating 'portrait tour of the arts', a series of nineteen innovative and unconventional portraits of New Zealand's best-known artists.
Born in Porirua in 1974, of Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Whakaeke and European descent, he is one of New Zealand's most significant and influential mid-career artists. A versatile and prolific artist, his work is direct, fresh, accessible, often funny and always provocative. Over the past twenty years he has produced an impressive and remarkably varied body of work that has been shown in major exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia, England, Japan, Mexico and the USA.
Youle's bold, compelling portraits of New Zealand art-world personalities he admires include musicians, poets, writers as well as visual artists. They belong to a related series; when Youle began the series in 2013 he set out to create what he describes as 'a whakapapa' of New Zealand artists, past and present, who have shaped our culture in some way. Youle's portraits of these artist-mentors, both historical and contemporary, pay homage to the way artists connect across time in an ongoing visual conversation. He carefully researches the character and background of each of his subjects to identify their uniqueness and significance. His understanding and respect for the artists he depicts is reflected in the elaborate, rather elusive titles he gives each of his portraits. Youle's titles are deliberately vague in order to draw the viewer into identifying the subject.
Youle clearly understands the importance of the portrait in contemporary life. For this series of work, Youle, like many others of his generation, looks to Pop art for inspiration. The influence of Andy Warhol can be seen in the bright, saturated colours, hard-edged style and appropriated imagery of Youle's portraits. Yet Youle. who describes himself as having 'a Warholian visual pop sensibility and work ethic, manages to translate America's pop-art portraiture into his own highly distinctive style. By introducing its cool glamour into New Zealand portraiture, he is revitalising what may be seen by some as the conservative genre of portrait art.
Helen Kedgley, Curator
