Hamish Macaulay | Flow

11 - 22 February 2023

Calm Waters, 2022, monotype on paper

These new works are all imagined environments. I term them as ‘imaginary vistas fuelled by everyday lived experiences’. The artwork is nowhere and everywhere, and I hope viewers see a place in this work that resonates with them in the same way that it does for me.

Over the past year I have been exploring different mediums to achieve a level of looseness and degradation that reminds me of historical geographical images. Early New Zealand photos were often of low quality, and many have been poorly stored. It is fair to say that being surrounded by family history again has played a part in influencing my current work.

The subjects are reflective of my new environment in New Zealand. I'm living in Waikanae, a suburb on the Kapiti Coast. While I'm not living on the beach with views of the ocean, I am living in an environment where the conditions change as quickly as the weather does. This provides me with a never-ending influence for texture, colour and light. The recurring landform motifs in a lot of these works is loosely based on various coastal views typical in this part of the country.

These works are multi-layered acrylic on paper. Each piece varies in the number of layers it has, but some have up to 30 layers to create the desired depth and effect.

- Hamish Macaulay, 2023
Click HERE to watch Hamish Macaulay in conversation with Vincent Eames
Landscapes
Safe Harbour, 2022, monotype on paper

Cityscapes

This range of monoprints hints at a nocturnal view of the city skyline from across the water. They are different skylines, from different times of the evening, and different seasons. I have always enjoyed living in and visiting coastal cities around the world. I feel a sense of adventure studying the glimmering lights reflecting on the water.

'Looking Back' is a retrospective – a view of the city skyline back before massive skyscrapers, in a bygone era when commercial port towns and cities were more low-rise. This series is inspired by a trip to Havana several years ago. The harbour features just a few taller commercial buildings, but the majority of the structures are much smaller, and concrete – not glass and steel.
Windy City, 2022, monotype on paper

Windy City

This variable edition monotype pictorializes the wind whistling through the city of my home town, Wellington. Known globally as 'the windy city' because of its position at the bottom of the north island of New Zealand, it is exposed to the prevailing winds from the north, and the freezing winds from the south - with nothing between it and Antarctica! The city is built around the harbour, and surrounded by steep hills, causing the wind to swirl and dance.
Curves

Curves; my latest body of work, is an expression of energy and movement. Thick layers of textural colour draw attention to the painting’s surface and physicality, contributing to the overall movement and dynamism. Opposing curves are carved into the thick upper layers of paint to reveal underlying colour, form and texture within the work.

These pieces are inspired by the Creation story from Maori mythology, which I became interested in while researching for a painting I was creating for a 2022 Matariki exhibition. This series currently has two branches; Creation and Storm.

Creation

Each unique piece from ‘Creation’ is composed of gestural strokes - Ranginui (Sky Father) as a group of downward facing curves, and Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) as upward arching curves. In the beginning they are laying together in darkness in a close embrace.

Storm

Each unique piece from the ‘Storm’ series is composed of directional gestural strokes, multiple transparent layers, and opposing curves visualising the elements unleashed by Tāwhirimātea (god of weather). He was angry when his brothers separated his parents Ranganui & Papatūānuku to let light into the world, and he had not been consulted.
Gordon Walters in Singapore

Gordon Walters was one of New Zealand’s most influential modern artists. Across six decades he explored the potential of a few simple geometric elements with a singular focus, creating works of exactitude and refinement, fusing abstract modernism with traditional Māori art. In this series of multi-coloured monotypes I explore the concept of Gordon’s view from his hotel room window. All detail is removed leaving just the transparent horizontal and vertical axis from the building across the street. The transparency and regular/irregular lines create a texture that at a glance could be perceived as woven fabric.
Glitch in Time

Loosely inspired by the hands of a clock, these artworks use regular angles irregularly. The works are created using a labour intensive reductive process whereby paint is systematically scraped away from the plate with a steel straight edge using a stop start motion, and leaving a linear pattern on the surface. Because of the handmade nature of this process, the lines that are left are irregular. By changing the direction of each set of coloured lines, a fabric-like pattern emerges. I like to think of these images as a matrix in the fabric of time.
At a Glance in the Print Room | Hamish Macaulay: Flow

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