Celebrating long days, warm bodies

Douglas MacDiarmid’s Creatures Entangled VIII (1966) acrylic on canvas. The artwork was purchased...
Douglas MacDiarmid’s Creatures Entangled VIII (1966) acrylic on canvas. The artwork was purchased in 1970 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society. Photo: Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
Douglas MacDiarmid’s Creatures Entangled VIII is full of the promise of sunshine and surf, writes Lucy Hammonds.

Loaded with luscious colour, Douglas MacDiarmid’s Creatures Entangled VIII (1966) is the perfect portal through which to emerge from the grips of a Dunedin winter.

The promise of sunshine and surf materialise out of the heavily textured surface, and what initially appears as an abstract composition gradually reveals a group of bronzed and tangled sunbathers set against an azure seascape.

Heavy with sensuality and languor, this is a painting by a significant expatriate New Zealand artist that celebrates long days and warm bodies.

Douglas MacDiarmid was born in Taihape in 1922 and educated at Timaru Boys’ High School and later Canterbury University.

MacDiarmid’s artistic training was informal, his practice developing in the early 1940s through his connection with The Group, an avant-garde art association in Christchurch that played an important role in New Zealand’s art and cultural history.

Like many of his peers, art made way for military service during World War 2, which MacDiarmid served in New Zealand in both the army and air force. 

He left New Zealand for London and Europe in 1946, determined to further his career, and since 1952 has been based in Paris.

Although based overseas, MacDiarmid retains strong links with New Zealand.

He has exhibited regularly in this country since 1950, his expressive approach injecting a unique flair to the New Zealand art scene.

In 1970, MacDiarmid held an exhibition at Dunedin Public Art Gallery from which this painting was acquired for the gallery’s permanent collection.

- Lucy Hammonds is curator at Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

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