Some artists are interested mainly in exploring the
possible boundaries of their subject, but others are also
interested in the real world and how it relates to their art,
according to Christchurch artist, Ross Gray.
He is of the latter persuasion and for many years his art has
been concerned with cityscapes and, in particular, the loss
of heritage.
"I'm an artist, serious about matters of importance to
painting and about painting, but I'm also a citizen who's
concerned about the city and civic and architectural and
historical heritage, and I guess I'm trying to bring these
two things together," he said.
He was in Dunedin recently to hang the the second part of his
exhibition, "Preoccupied", at Monumental Gallery in Anzac
Ave.
A survey of works from 1998, it was originally installed at
CoCA (Centre of Contemporary Art) in Christchurch as "Reverb"
but was disrupted a week after opening by the February 22
earthquake which damaged the building.
Some of his works were badly damaged, some unharmed, and some
are still in the gallery, as it is unsafe to remove them.
However, Gray managed to rescue most of them and took the
opportunity to rehang the salvaged works, along with more
recent ones, in Dunedin. Because the gallery space at
Monumental is smaller, it is showing in two parts. The second
part opened last week and runs until September 4.
"I think it's important to be active socially and politically
but that's not to say all art has to be," he says.
He feels people will later regret the haste with which
heritage buildings damaged in the earthquakes are being
pulled down.
They may be reconstructing a few important buildings, but the
historic commercial buildings are the heart of the city, he
said.
"Although they may be owned privately, they are in some ways
public domain. Certainly, the facade is important for the
streetscape.
There's not enough recognition given to that, though a lot of
fine words have been said, but there's not enough practical
assistance to owners.
There are owners who are very keen [to strengthen or rebuild]
but simply can't do it without help from government or
councils and I suppose insurance is a big problem now."
He points out that in Europe after the destruction of World
War 2, it was the norm to rebuild the historic parts of
cities the way they had been.
He became involved in saving heritage buildings about 15
years ago when there was a sudden rash of impending
demolitions of important Christchurch buildings, including
the Kaiapoi Woollen Mills building.
"I was so incensed I got involved and my paintings soon after
started to explore those ideas. I was trying to express those
ideas in my abstract way," he said.
"So what I'm trying to do in my two ways is my struggle to
retain heritage post the earthquake and to extend my ideas in
painting, the painting process that somehow deals with the
aspect, but the question is now where to take it.
"I'm still working out ideas, and certainly this recent
earthquake when lives were lost - it was horrendous and
tragic and it's how to think your way around that in terms of
art-making too," he said.
"A lot of it is beyond words. It's just the sense of what
needs to happen or what might happen."
Since he was young his work has focused on cityscapes rather
than landscapes, probably because of his interest in
architecture.
"I've sometimes thought if I hadn't been an artist and a
teacher, if I'd had the particular skills with maths and
physics, I'd like to have been an architect. I teach drawing
to architectural studies students at CPIT [Christchurch
Polytechnic Institute of Technology] so I have a lot of
contact with things architectural, but I guess it's that
human creation of buildings and spaces and cities that
fascinates me."
The earthquakes have disrupted the arts communities, as
everything else in Christchurch, and many inner-city
galleries have had to close, including the Christchurch Art
Gallery which as been taken over by the council for offices.
However, new spaces are opening in suburbs, students are
finding spaces to exhibit, and there are a lot of arts groups
meetings and forums, he saidGray, now in his mid-60s, grew up
in Wanganui and studied art at the University of Canterbury
in the 1960s.
One of his teachers was Rudi Gopas, a European who came to
New Zealand after World War 2 and influenced a generation of
artists including Clairmont, Trusttum and Fomison.
"He somewhat scorned the British tradition of landscape and
portraiture. He was interested in the interior workings of
the painting, the paint itself, the colour and structure and
composition - all those things that don't depend on some
external reference point."
Over the years, he says, he has consistently experimented,
building up layers of paint and form, which he likens to a
palimpsest, a layering of the present over the past, in the
same way the heritage of a city is built up by the layers of
time, the passage of people and the changes to buildings
See it
"Preoccupied", a survey exhibition of works by Ross Gray, is
at Monumental Gallery in Anzac Ave, Dunedin, until September
4.
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