Christchurch, Thursday NIght
Last Thursday evening I was in Christchurch walking to a German restaurant called Bismark, incidentallly, a restaurant I recommend, when Justin Paton, one of my companions, seeing me looking at this arrangement on an alley wall, said: ‘that looks like a Peter Peryer photo’.
He was right. This photo does look like a Peter Peryer photo but if you asked me why, I would have difficulty explaining it in words. Yet, Justin, in a few sentences would put his finger on it. Succintly, too I imagine.
The photo does remind me of an installation photo that took, about 5 years ago, of a work made by the collective, et al.
Robot Room
Winter is Coming This is the look that the countryside around here has at present. There is great beauty to it
although to capture it with a camera is another matter. A few hours after I took this, snowflakes began falling around my home. I was so excited that it didn’t even occur to me to try to take a photo.
Another photo that I took today is one of this gate. Sometimes I have to take a photo of something in order to see what it looks like when I’ve taken a photo of it. I’ve looked at these gates so many times as I’ve driven past, that I thought it best to try to sort out what the attraction was. I hope that these photos are not in some way autobiographical.
I am writing this posting as a general response to the e-mails that I receive from you, e-mails in which you request information about my work and practice.
The sheer numbers of these e-mails, two yesterday for example, makes it impossible for me to answer them personally. I hope that you appreciate this. I am, contrary to what you might imagine, most of the time very busy. It takes a lot of effort to run a career and and to keep up with the production of new images let alone leave time for rest and recreation. There is certainly no time for helping you with your homework as well.
My contribution is my work. That is what I offer you. As a bonus, I keep a blog, in which I describe much of the thinking behind the images that I produce. Thank you for your understanding.
The Kelliher Art Prize
When I was young The Kelliher Art Prize was the big one in the art world of New Zealand.
It dominated and in some ways shaped the art scene, the work that was accepted always had a particular look to it.
I became familiar with many of the paintings (it was always paintings) that won prizes because Sir Henry Kelliher was a beer baron and the winners works were alway reproduced in calendars etc to be distributed in the hotels that he controlled. At that time my parents ran some of these hotels.
Now that I am living in Central Otago I am once again reminded of these works because many of them, in their pictorial approach, dealt with the same landscapes that I now see every day. I even find my camera being drawn to exactly the same sights. This is slightly difficult for me as this work has become so unfashionable.
I have lately been having another look at some of these paintings, here are a couple by Douglas Badcock b.1922. I can’t help feeling that there is something going on in these even though I don’t think that I would want one on my wall. Perhaps I am wrong in this. These two were recently for sale in a recent auction for less than I imagine they originally sold for.
‘It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.’
This was on a bumper sticker that I saw a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps it explains why
in recent years I have been so attracted to photographing toys. The Lion is a money box that I saw a couple of days ago in Queenstown, and the cat is a toy that I bought at a $2 shop in New Plymouth. This cat is going to be on the cover of a book about my work coming out in September.