B.

This two-part exhibition will profile the latest work of two of New Zealand’s leading printmakers - John Reynolds and Marian Maguire - and examine some of the innovations currently taking place in this area of art practice. Both artists have produced work conceived on a scale not usually contemplated by printmakers, and have avoided the matting and glazing which is traditionally associated with works on paper. They have each employed the composite to establish a body of work to be viewed and read as a total installation. As Maguire is from Christchurch and Reynolds lives in Auckland, the two-part exhibition will also offer a North-South perspective.

Millennium is a single work; a print project created on an epic scale. A continuous narrative is formed by pinning a multitude of lithographs to the wall, edge to edge. While arranged in a seemingly linear, temporal and episodic fashion, the length imparts a narrative book-like quality. Within the embracing frieze form, rhythms, movement and cyclic patterns are established. This large work on paper is the opposite of what you might expect from the medium, yet it still retains the inviting, intimate and vibrant quality offered by the print form.

Millennium is the culmination of three years' work. Its inspiration was a trip Reynolds made to Spain in 1992. He was impressed with early versions of Christian imagery and evolved his own iconography based on eastern ideas of life, death and beyond. Reynolds began making the work while artist-in-residence at Canterbury University School of Fine Arts in 1993 and his response to living in Christchurch during this time has found its way into the work in sections containing maze-like forms evoking the Avon River's passage through the city.

('Millennium', Bulletin, No.101, April/May 1996, p.3)

This exhibition was held at the McDougall Art Annex in the Arts Centre.

For information on Marian Maguire's exhibition Library Travelling, click here.