Doris Lusk
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1916, d.1990
City Gasworks, Christchurch
- 1958
- Oil on canvasboard
- Gift of Martin Prior in memory of Ann, Mary and Arthur Prior, 2019
- 860 x 630mm
- 2019/034
- View on google maps
Tags: buildings (structures), coal, gasworks, railroads (infrastructure), urban landscapes, utility poles
Doris Lusk consistently painted industrial landscapes from the mid-1930s on, focusing particularly on visually challenging sites. Drawn to mines and quarries, power stations, gasworks and pumphouses, jetties, bridges and demolitions across the decades, she created a body of works that appear as metaphors for the often unsettling impact of human activity and presence.Featuring the same Waltham landmark that Rita Angus had painted twenty-five years before, this work reveals Lusk’s ability to present complex industrial structures with a clearsighted, impassive tone. In this it also exemplifies the outlook of a painter who became an esteemed lecturer at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts from 1966 to 1981.
(From Here on the Ground, 18 May – 17 November 2024)
Exhibition History
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Notes
City Gasworks, Christchurch by Doris Lusk
If you grew up in Christchurch before the city’s gasworks was decommissioned in 1982, you'll almost certainly remember the grimy industrial building that dominated the scene next to the Waltham Street overbridge. It was maybe the most industrialised site in the city, where dirty columns of smoke bellowed out from chimney stacks signalling coal being fired to create gas for residents and businesses. It was a subject that captivated painter Doris Lusk. She had previously painted the Dunedin Gasworks in around 1935, and also turned her hand to painting many other industrialised sites – hydroelectric stations, Christchurch’s Pumphouse, sluice mines at St Bathans, the wharf at Onekaka, and numerous roads and railways slicing their way through the green countryside.