Exhibitions

Gavin Hipkins | Block Paintings

04.11.15 - 05.12.15

4 November – 5 December 2015

Gavin Hipkins’ new series documents readymade children’s wooden play blocks that he has hand painted, and assembled on the studio table for photographing in close-up. The series explores a psychology where the artist turns child at play in the studio — embellishing toyshop play blocks in different colours than their generic stock hues, then treating the blocks as still life material.

Photographed with a macro lens and greatly enlarged, the photos resemble abstract paintings, and echo the minimal designs of New Zealand’s grandfather of geometric abstraction, Gordon Walters. Except where Walter’s works were clean and sharp, in Block Paintings brush strokes, paint drips, and imperfections on the painted surfaces are revealed through the verisimilitude of a photographic surface. The narrow depth of field builds a tension between an ultra precise surface detail on the blocks, with a blurring of surrounding focal planes.

“Sitting between sculpture, painting, and photography, I like to think of these new works as representations of ‘kinder monuments’ — a reference to their ambiguous scale, and the occupation of the field plane by massively enlarged brutalist wooden blocks,” says Hipkins. “The toy blocks are photographed on my studio table under natural lighting conditions. This treatment of isolated objects recalls tabletop still life traditions, as well as product photography used for advertising commodities. Yet by photographing the arrangements under natural light conditions, rather than the clinical lighting of the photographic studio, there is a clear painterly treatment.”

True to the status of paintings and handcrafted conventions, the new works ignore the very reproducibility of a photographic ontology, instead, these works are presented as unique photographic prints. Hipkins’ return to the still-life genre and a strategy of photographing humble painted objects in the studio, builds on important works including his multipart photo-installations The Colony (2002) and The Pavilion (2011). He positions the Block Painting series as extending his navigation of modernity and photography via referencing eclectic pictorial strategies, and revisiting an avant-garde utopianism. The later exploration has included repeated photographic series of late modern and Brutalist architecture in series such as the multi-panel documentation of Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh in Leisure Valley (2014), and his earlier photo-frieze of New Zealand tertiary institutions in The Habitat (2000).

Gavin Hipkins is an Auckland-based artist who works with photography and moving image. He has been described as a ‘tourist of photography’ reflecting a strategic treatment of eclectic styles and diverse photographic techniques. Over the last two decades his practice has engaged landscape and commodity discourses via a range of analogue and digital technologies, photo-installations, and artist videos. In 2014, Hipkins’ first feature film Erewhon — an essay adaptation of Samuel Butler’s 1872 novel Erewhon, Or Over the Range — premiered at the New Zealand International Film Festival and Edinburgh Art Festival.

He has exhibited widely including: International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2015); The Jewish Museum, New York, USA (2015); Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York, USA (2014); City Art Centre, Edinburgh Art Festival, Scotland (2014); Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Germany (2013); Armory Film, The Armory Show, New York (2012); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2011); Austrian Museum of Applied Art and Contemporary Art (MAK), Vienna, Austria (2011); Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2010); San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California, USA (2007); International Museum of Photography and Film at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, USA, (2006); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, (2004); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA (2000).

He represented New Zealand at the 1998 Sydney Biennale, and the 2002 Sao Paulo Biennale. His work is included in major public and private collections including the Queensland Art Gallery, the Auckland Art Gallery, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, and George Eastman Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York. He is an Associate Professor at Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland.

Located in New Zealand on Auckland’s Karangahape Road, Starkwhite presents a programme of artists’ projects, solo shows by represented and invited artists, and independently curated exhibitions.

Please contact the gallery for further information and images.

Gavin Hipkins | Block Paintings | STARKWHITE
Exhibitions

Current

Past

Billy Apple® | Progressives and Other Self-Portraits

31.08 - 12.10

Marti Friedlander | Starting Point for a Complicated Story

12.07 - 24.08

John Reynolds | Some Greater Plan (for Claire)

04.06 - 06.07

Fiona Pardington | Te taha o te rangi

16.04 - 25.05

Gordon Walters | History

09.02 - 31.03

Whitney Bedford, Bill Henson, Ani O'Neill, Jonny Niesche, and Fiona Pardington | Sampler 2024

09.02 - 31.03

Jamie Te Heuheu | Quiet Thoughts and Quiet Dreams

23.11.23 - 13.01.24

Bill Henson | The Liquid Night

23.11.23 - 31.01.24

Bonco | Star Stare Start

20.10.23 - 19.11.23

Clinton Watkins | Depth of Field

20.10.23 - 19.11.23

Gordon Walters by Francis Pound | Book Launch

14.09.23

Curated by Jonny Niesche | Ümwelt

01.09.23 - 07.10.23

Richard Maloy | Raw

27.07.23 - 27.08.23

Petra Cortright | micro lemon diamond realm

07.07.23 - 26.08.23

Jonny Niesche | You say sfumato, I say sfumato

12.05.23 - 27.06.23

Billy Apple® | Divine Proportion

23.02.23 - 08.04.23

Gerold Miller, Gordon Walters | Miller meets Walters

08.12.23 - 31.01.23

FuckCancer_DontDelayFun | Blind Auction

27.10.22 - 05.11.22

John Reynolds | APOCALYPSEoCLOCK

21.10.22 - 01.12.22

Whitney Bedford | Imaginary

30.08.22 - 15.10.22

Seung Yul Oh | Huggong-Monologue

09.07.22 - 20.08.22

Gerold Miller

01.06.22 - 02.07.22

Bill Henson | Selected Works

30.04.22 - 29.05.22

Layla Rudneva-Mckay | I Roll

15.02.22 - 19.03.22

Fiona Pardington | Tarota

16.11.21 – 18.12.21

Fiona Pardington | Tarota Preview

05.10.21 – 07.10.21

Jan van der Ploeg | The Other Window

17.08.21 – 12.10.21

Laith McGregor | Second Wind

03.07.21 – 07.08.21

Richard Maloy | Maternal Routine

03.06.21 - 19.06.21

Bill Henson | 1985-2021

21.05.21 - 19.06.21

Martin Basher | Birds of Paradise

13.04.21 - 14.05.21

Will Cooke | Every Wall Is A Door

15.01.21 - 13.02.21

Jonny Niesche | Poikilos

17.11.20 - 22.12.20

Gemma Smith | Thin Air

06.10.20 - 07.11.20

Whitney Bedford, Petra Cortright, Kirsten Everberg, Judy Ledgerwood | Slippery Painting

01.09.20 - 03.10.20

Jin Jiangbo, John Reynolds | Performative Geographies

14.07.20 - 15.08.20

Group Show | Sampler 2020

14.05.20 - 06.06.20

Gordon Walters | From the Archive

05.02.20 - 07.03.20

Richard Maloy | Studio: Space & Time

28.01.20 - 01.02.20

Rebecca Baumann | New Work

27.11.19 - 21.12.19

The Estate of L. Budd et al. | the artists in conversation

22.10.19 - 16.11.19

John Reynolds | The Art of Wine

14.10.19

Billy Apple® and Tāme Iti | Flagged

08.10.19 - 12.10.19

Clinton Watkins | binary

19.09.19 - 03.11.19

Yuk King Tan | Crisis of the Ordinary

21.08.19 - 14.09.19

Group Show | Sampler 2019

23.07.19 - 15.08.19

Fiona Pardington | TIKI: Orphans of Māoriland

12.06.19 - 11.07.19

Laith McGregor | AM/PM/AM

09.05.19 - 08.06.19

BILLY APPLE® is N=One

11.04.19 - 05.05.19

Ani O'Neill | Classic Hits

14.03.19 - 10.04.19

Alicia Frankovich | Microchimerism

08.02.19 - 06.03.19

Martin Basher | One Week Stand

24.01.19 - 02.02.19

The Estate of L.Budd_et al.

11.12.18 - 22.12.18, 02.01.19 - 12.01.19

Gavin Hipkins | Block Units

14.11.18 - 08.12.18

John Stezaker | Collages

09.10.18 - 03.11.18

Grant Stevens | The Mountain and the Waterfalls

01.09.18 - 29.09.18

Whitney Bedford | Bohemia

31.07.18 - 24.08.18

Seung Yul Oh | Horizontal Loop

26.06.18 - 28.07.18

Gordon Walters | From the Walters Estate

29.05.18 - 16.06.18

Group Show | Sampler 2018

17.04.18 - 26.05.18

Alicia Frankovich, Ani O’Neill, The Estate of L Budd, et al. | 125

13.03.18 - 07.04.18

Len Lye | Love Springs Eternal

07.02.18 - 07.03.18

Richard Maloy | Things I have Seen

22.12.17

Michael Zavros | The Silver Fox

17.11.17 - 16.12.17

John Reynolds | RocksInTheSky...

17.11.17 - 24.12.17

Martin Basher | Devil at the Gates of Heaven

10.10.17 - 04.11.17

Daniel von Sturmer | Luminous Figures

02.09.17 - 30.09.17

Martin Basher | Hawaiian Tropic

01.08.17 - 26.08.17

Fiona Pardington | Nabokov's Blues: The Charmed Circle

23.06.17 - 23.07.17

John Reynolds | FrenchBayDarkly…

17.05.17 - 17.06.17

Group Show | On the Grounds

02.03.17 - 08.04.17

Billy Apple® | Art Transactions

08.02.17 - 04.03.17

Gavin Hipkins, Jin Jiangbo, Danie Mellor | Beyond Landscape

17.11.16 - 17.12.16

Laith McGregor | Swallow the Sun

01.10.16 - 12.11.16

Matt Henry | Analogues

19.09.16 - 14.10.16

John Reynolds | WalkWithMe...

30.08.16 - 24.09.16

Daniel Crooks | Vanishing Point

03.08.16 - 27.18.16

Gavin Hipkins, Richard Maloy, Daniel von Sturmer | Material Candour

05.07.16 - 22.07.16

Layla Rudneva-Mackay | Running Towards Water

07.06.16 - 08.07.16

Fiona Pardington | 100% Unicorn

24.05.16 - 25.06.16

Clinton Watkins | lowercase

19.04.16 - 18.05.16

Whitney Bedford 2016 | Lost and Found

15.03.16 - 14.04.16

Fiona Clark | For Pink Pussycat Club as part of THE BILL

20.02.16 - 22.04.16

Alicia Frankovich | The Female has Undergone Several Manifestations

06.02.16 - 05.03.16

Fiona Pardington | The Popular Recreator

11.12.15 - 23.12.15

Gavin Hipkins | Block Paintings

04.11.15 - 05.12.15

Gordon Walters | Gouaches and a Painting from the 1950s

21.09.15 - 24.10.15

Fiona Pardington | Childish Things

12.08.15 - 19.09.15

Rebecca Baumann, Brendan Van Hek, Alicia Frankovich, Len Lye, László Moholy-Nagy and Grant Stevens | In Motion

10.07.15 - 08.08.15

Grant Stevens | Hold Together, Fall Apart

07.07.15 - 02.08.15

Laith McGregor | Somewhere Anywhere

02.06.15 - 04.07.15

Arnold Manaaki Wilson, Billy Apple® | TOTEM | curated by Mary Morrison

01.05.15 - 30.05.15

Martin Basher | Jizzy Velvet

03.02.15 - 14.03.15

John Reynolds | BLUTOPIA

19.12.14

Seung Yul Oh | memmem

31.10.14 - 06.12.14

Gavin Hipkins | Erewhon

31.10.14 - 29.11.14

Rebecca Baumann | Once More With Feeling

19.09.14 - 18.10.14

Michael Zavros | Bad Dad

02.06.14 - 28.06.14

THE ANALYSIS OF BILLY APPLE®

05.05.14 - 10.05.14

Jin Jiangbo, Stella Brennan, Billy Apple, Trenton Garratt, Seung Yul Oh, John Reynolds, Layla Rudneva-Mackay, Jim Speers, Yuk King Tan and Wang Dawei | SIGNALS

08.08.14 - 13.09.14

Layla Rudneva-Mackay | Blue Squares, Purple Pairs

17.03.14 - 12.04.14

Curated by Martin Basher | Lovers

06.02.14 - 06.03.14

Glen Hayward | I don't want you to worry about me

06.12.13 - 31.01.14

Matt Henry | High Fidelity

16.11.13 - 14.12.13

Li Xiaofei | Assembly Line - Entrance

03.10.13 - 26.10.13

Richard Maloy | All the things I did

04.09.13 - 30.09.13

John Reynolds | Vagabondage

22.08.13 - 21.09.13

Clinton Watkins | Frequency Colour

25.07.13 - 16.08.13

Curated by Robert Leonard | BAZINGA!

11.05.13 - 08.06.13

Whitney Bedford | This for That

09.04.13 - 04.05.13

Jin Jiangbo | Rules of Nature

08.03.13 - 04.04.13

Martin Basher | Solo Exhibition

05.02.2013 - 02.03.13

Ross Manning | Field Emissions

29.11.12 - 22.12.12, 15.01.13 - 22.01.13

Seung Yul Oh | HUGGONG

23.10.12 - 17.11.12

Jae Hoon Lee | Antarctic Fever

18.09.12 - 13.10.12

Curated by Brian Butler | Greetings from Los Angeles: Eight Artists

10.07.12 - 06.08.12