Gallery Snapshot with EAST Exhibiting Artist, John Brown

12:30-12.45pm, Thursday 6 September |

Join the Artist, John Brown, for a 15 minute look at a few of the artworks in the current exhibition during your lunchtime.

In his new series of paintings created for EAST 2018, Brown amalgamates various painterly conventions, histories, iconography and landscapes. This body of work is in part inspired by his attempt to piece together his Pākehā/Greek heritage and immediate family history, which has been fragmented through a shipwreck incident, adoption and integration. He explores this mixed linage through unlikely pairings. Motifs from the notable Hawke’s Bay artist, Rita Angus Brown are brought into conversation with the compositional elements of the British artist Francis Bacon, in addition to pyramids, cobras, eels, spirit like entities and architectural forms. The works also draw on the spurious theories of Pākehā indigeneity as explored in the controversial book To the End of the Earth (2012), co-authored by Maxwell C Hill and Gary Cook who claim that Greek-Egyptian voyagers were the first people to visit Aotearoa, New Zealand. Through this conglomeration of influences, Brown seeks a conversation between artists and cultures across time in order to obtain a sense of belonging that might otherwise not be found.

To be part of the discussion, meet at the gallery information desk.

Free, no booking required.