Peter Stichbury
b.1969
NDE
- 2013
- Acrylic on linen
- Purchased 2013
- 850 x 1203mm
- 2013/067
There’s a strangely ahistorical quality to Peter Stichbury’s paintings. While his subjects are clearly contemporary personalities, the weight of the art-historical past stands behind his approach to portraiture. In this powerful image, a young woman is depicted with a thousand-yard-stare –has something has happened in the past that she has not yet come to terms with in the present?
(Now, Then, Next: Time and the Contemporary, 15 June 2019 – 8 March 2020)
Exhibition History
Unseen: The Changing Collection, 18 December 2015 – 19 June 2016
NDE made its public debut high on Christchurch Art Gallery’s external south wall, when the immaculate surface of this canvas was minutely photographed then blown up onto tautly stretched vinyl as a glowing, seven-metre-wide billboard. Now, the fretful gaze that discomfited passers-by on the street outside cuts across the exhibition space instead. Have we, as the acronym in the title might suggest, stumbled upon a person on the cusp of the hereafter? Whatever this too-perfect young woman may have witnessed, it has, at least temporarily, removed her from our sphere into another. We’re uncomfortably close, yet worlds apart.
Related reading: Unseen: the changing collection
Notes
Populate! update #8 (face up)
The waning sun and lowering weather have one nice side-effect, which is to create the perfect conditions for viewing Peter Stichbury's backlit billboard NDE, newly installed on Worcester Boulevard.
Notes
Populate! update #4 (proofs of life)
So back at the start of last week I posted a teaser view of NDE, Peter Stichbury's work in progress for the Gallery's tenth-birthday Populate! programme, and asked the question: How is this easel painting, this thin skin of canvas with its fragile coating of acrylic, going to to muscle its way up to public art scale?
Notes
Kauri tree landscape by Colin McCahon
This article first appeared as 'Mighty kauris inspired McCahon' in The Press on 10 February 2015.
Notes
NUD CYCLADIC I by Sarah Lucas
This article first appeared as 'A visible means of support' in The Press on 26 September 2014.
Notes
How Did You Do That?
How often have you stood in front of an art work and wondered how the artist did that?
Notes
Lift of a gift
Staff here at the Gallery have enjoyed finally getting the opportunity to see Dust, Smoke and Rainbows (2013), a major new painting gifted by Shane Cotton, which was brought out of storage to be photographed recently.
Notes
There is only one direction by Colin McCahon
This article appeared as 'Divine Innovation' in the The Press on 31 August 2012.
Notes
A major boon to the Gallery in the direct aftermath of the earthquake
English artist Sarah Lucas was installing her show in Two Rooms, Auckland, when the 22 February earthquake struck.
Notes
Max's gift
In early 2010 Max Gimblett announced his intention to give the Gallery a substantial gift of works on paper. The only complication was that someone had to go and select them...
Notes
Subtly engaging security
We've all heard the stories about confusions occurring on the edge where art meets life. The London cleaning lady, for instance, who threw out hundreds of cigarette butts that turned out to be a Damien Hirst. Naturally, no self-respecting gallery professional wants to see their favourite artworks confused with mere stuff.