Andrew Craig is a landscape architect based in Christchurch with a background in Art History and post-graduate study as a landscape architect.  He also attended numerous workshops in painting, many of which were based at the School of Fine Arts at Ilam. He maintains that both painting and landscape architecture are entwined, both drawing peoples’ attention to, and appreciation of, the landscape that may otherwise be overlooked or taken for granted.

Craig’s interest in the land is in its geography, history and the complex nature of the relationships that it shares with us.  He comments: ‘The New Zealand landscape is particularly active where belligerent tectonic forces continually shape the land as do the erosive effects of a boisterous climate. Consequently the land is constantly rising and falling, particularly in areas where erosion strips away the land surface exposing what lies beneath.  It is this interface which interests me, not only because it tells of our country’s origins, but, in a sense we as individuals are faced with similar contests – for example the simultaneous effects of growth versus decay and restlessness versus contentment.  Similarly we, like the earth, are subject to forces beyond our control. And where these are exposed, a terrible beauty often finds expression.’

‘The paintings are free from the usual elements found in landscape works such as the sky (as a means of escape) and objects such as buildings and people, which would otherwise give them scale.  So as much as anything, the audience is confronted with surface and composition, many of the paintings derived from montages – bits of landscape put together (sometimes upside down) to make a fictitious whole.’

DETAILS
Andrew Craig, Ao-Terra

McAtamney Gallery

 40A Talbot St, Geraldine

9 November – 11 December

IMAGE

1. Andrew Talbot, Sinter, 2022, oil on canvas