Susan Garland - City Constructs and Ruinous

14 May - 13 June 2021

Susan Garland presents a thought provoking suite of new works in the Small Gallery.

 Artist Statement: 

CITY CONSTRUCTS.

These six paintings on sheets of perspex, using oil paint glaze medium and metal foils, were my response to moving from Palmerston North to an Apartment in Auckland city. I then had a view on two sides over the city, harbour, and Spaghetti junction. The works are not photographic representations of the views, but collections of elements and sensations of how I felt about my new surroundings.

These elements have been constructed into paintings where form, colour, and response to my situation, are given expression. 

Artists Statement:  

RUINOUS.

This work came out of a continuing interest in the etchings and engravings of Giovanni Battista Pirinesi, an 18th century Roman Architect and Antiquarian. His engravings were measures he took to support himself and depict a kind of Utopia of the greatness of Ancient Rome.

I especially admire his imaginative works depicting monolithic Prisons,or Carcere, in conditions of decay sometimes containing tiny figures exploring the never ending spaces, stairways, bridges, and arches, with suggestions of machines of torture.

For myself I was concerned to construct my own abstracted ruined spaces in which one can also lose oneself and explore.