John Walsh is a painter who was born in 1954 in

Tolaga Bay Tolaga Bay ( mi, Uawa) is both a bay and small town on the East Coast of New Zealand's North Island located 45 kilometres northeast of Gisborne and 30 kilometres south of Tokomaru Bay. The region around the bay is rugged and remote, and for many ...

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. He is of Aitanga a Hauiti/ New Zealand Irish descent. Although he attended

Ilam School of Fine Arts The Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury was founded in 1882 as the Canterbury College School of Art. The school became a full department of the university in the 1950s, and was the first department to move to the suburban Ilam ...

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between 1973 and 1974, he is largely a self-taught artist. He now lives and works in

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His work

Although John Walsh started painting later in life, he has managed to create a name for himself on the New Zealand art scene. His first solo exhibition was the result of his appointment of curator at the National Art Gallery in Wellington (now known as

Te Papa Tongarewa Museum The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. ''Te Papa Tongarewa'' translates literally to "container of treasures" or in full "container of treasured things and people that spring f ...

). Since then, he continues to exhibit regularly in different galleries around New Zealand and has also had the opportunity to show his work abroad in

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and Noumea,

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. John Walsh started with figurative imagery, portraying people he knew around the East Coast region. His otherworldly landscapes and figures would take another few years before emerging as a constant in his paintings. In the meantime, Walsh was invited to participatein the no-longer-extant six storey Pathfinder mural, on the side of a socialist publishing house in New York in 1989, then moved on to work in a number of different institutions. It was when Walsh was invited to work as a curator in Wellington that he developed a theme for his paintings. Walsh works on medium to large scale boards achieving textural effects through scratches and expressive gestural brushwork. His work evokes mythical creatures and vistas which eludes the concept of a specific location and time. The recent exhibitio
''I Can't Stop Loving You''
held at

Gow Langsford Gallery Gow Langsford Gallery is a commercial art gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. The gallery was established in 1987 by John Gow and Gary Langsford. Gow Langsford represents and has represented many significant New Zealand and international artists, ...

retain the style of his earlier works while also demonstrating a new direction in the artist's career. While a sense of the ethereal remains through the use of similar hues and tones, the artist's interest shifts towards grand vistas rather than focussing on the mythical figures. However, one expects to see his otherworldly figures appear in the landscape at any given time.

Selected Public Collections

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* Te Papa Tongarewa - Museum of New Zealand, Wellington * Sarjeant Gallery,

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* Gisborne Museum and Arts Centre, Gisborne * Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Noumea, New Caledonia

Selected bibliography

* Adsett, Sandi, Cliff Whiting and Witi Ihimaera. ''Mataora. '' David Bateman Ltd, 1996. * Beatson, Peter and Dianne Beatson. ''The Arts in Aotearoa New Zealand, '' 1994. * Caughey, Elizabeth and John Gow. ''Contemporary New Zealand Art 4.'' David Bateman Ltd, 2005. * Gundry Sheridan. ‘Pathfinder Painter,’ ''North and South, '' July 1997. * Hohaia, Te Miringa, Gregory O’Brien and Lara Strongman. ''Parihaka: the Art of Passive Resistance. '' Published for exhibition at City Gallery Wellington/Parihaka Pa Trustees/Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2000. * Ihimaera, Witi and Ngarino Ellis. ''Te Ata: Maori Art from the East Coast. '' Reed Publishing, Auckland, 2002. * ''Te Maunga Taranaki: Views of a Mountain, '' exhibition catalogue, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery Publications, 2001. * Walsh, John. ''Nanny Mango. '' Te Papa Press, 2000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, John New Zealand painters Ilam School of Fine Arts alumni 1954 births Living people