Doris Lusk Imagined Projects II, Limeworks 1983. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1984
Doris Lusk Finale 1982. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1982
Doris Lusk Towards Omakau c.1942. Oil on board. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, William A. Sutton Bequest, 2000
Doris Lusk Hills from Springfield 1961. Watercolour. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, donated from the Canterbury Public Library Collection, 2001
This exhibition is now closed
Intricate landscapes and imaginative explorations by renowned New Zealand painter Doris Lusk.
Presented to honour the centenary of her birth, this exhibition features a selection of paintings from across the remarkable career of Doris Lusk (1916–1990). A key figure in the development of contemporary New Zealand art and core member of the celebrated Christchurch 'Group', Lusk was known for her deft brushwork, technical innovation and keen eye for structure, both natural and industrial. From intricately constructed early landscapes through to later, imaginative explorations in luminous acrylic and watercolour, Doris Lusk: Practical Visionary highlights how Lusk combined observation with invention to create paintings that resonate with an insistent and authentic sense of place.
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Date:
4 June – 30 October 2016 -
Curator:
Felicity Milburn -
Exhibition number:
1011
Collection works in this exhibition
Related reading: exhibition-1011
Doris Lusk: Practical Visionary labels
All the introductory text and all the labels for the show Doris Lusk: practical visionary (4 June – 30 October 2016).
film
Doris Lusk's landscapes
Artist William Sutton talks about the landscape painting of his friend and professional colleague Doris Lusk.
Notes
Wharf at Onekaka by Charles Brasch
Today our Visitor Programmes Co-ordinator Gwynneth Porter reads a poem by Charles Brasch that was written directly in response to a painting in our collection. We can still only visit these places in our minds, but here are 22 seconds of soap and water delight to assist in doing that.
Notes
Imagined Projects II, Limeworks by Doris Lusk
This article first appeared as 'Work evolved from years of practise' [sic] in The Press on 3 November 2016.
Notes
Onekaka Estuary by Doris Lusk
This article first appeared as 'Lusk grabbed any chance to draw the power of places' in The Press, 20 July 2016.
Notes
The Eyes Have It
Commentaries on Doris Lusk’s work often talk about her ‘eye’; for telling details, for spatial complexities, for colour, for line. Many of those who met the painter personally remember her eyes too, but for a different reason, recalling how she would peer out inscrutably from behind thickly rimmed spectacles, with a gaze that was simultaneously intimidating and engaging. It seems appropriate then, that when Kevin Capon photographed Lusk in 1985 the result was this extreme close-up. After setting up his camera and lighting, Capon invited his subjects to approach the camera however they preferred, catching them in the act of looking back. Lusk’s face fills the frame, the black lens of her glasses creating a portal-like opening, connecting us with her in that moment and suggesting both her curiosity and her reticence.
Notes
Finale
I bike past this relatively new building on the corner of Peterborough and Victoria streets every morning and marvel at its demise.
Collection
Doris Lusk Towards Omakau
Painted in 1942, the year Doris Lusk moved to Ōtautahi Christchurch, Towards Omakau is an exhilaratingly expansive view of a landscape near Alexandra, in Central Otago.
The composition accentuates the numerous lines that stretch over its surface, as they curve around eroded cliff faces, and extend in darting tangents as rivers and roads and form regimented verticals in the shelterbelts. Sheep trails crisscross gently rounded hills, echoing clouds that swirl overhead. Reflecting on her practice in later years, Doris stated: “[I] have tried to get to the heart of the matter, involved with the complexity rather than simplicity in describing the nature of our land.”
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)
Collection
Doris Lusk Landscape, Overlooking Kaitawa, Waikaremoana
In 1948, Doris Lusk and her family stayed in the Lake Waikaremoana region near Te Urewera and Hawke’s Bay, spending time with her husband’s daughter from his previous marriage. Lusk took on the complex challenge of depicting the local environment and the recently completed government hydroelectric scheme, designed to feed the increasing urban appetite for electricity.
'Landscape, Overlooking Kaitawa, Waikaremoana' is one of four works she completed, and includes construction workers’ temporary accommodation in the foreground. Mountains and buildings appear in the works as competing presences, each claiming their own monumental weight and status.
(From Here on the Ground, 18 May – 17 November 2024)
Collection
Doris Lusk Power House, Tuai
Lusk described the power station at Tuai to art historian Lisa Beaven as a “gothic building in the middle of the wild hills”. Certainly, this striking oil painting plays up its strange incongruity, combining an abruptly elevated viewpoint with a heightened, stylised approach reminiscent of the unsettling streetscapes of Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978). The tiny human figures moving briskly across the wide driveway accentuate the immense building towering over them, while the angled cars, curved road and power lines marching into the distance suggest a confluence of dynamic forces, barely contained.
(Doris Lusk: Practical Visionary, 4 June – 30 October 2016)
