The (controversial) intersection of Maori art and modernism in New Zealand

Gordon Walters features alongside other major figures (Rita Angus, Paratene Matchitt, Arnold Manaaki Wilson and Ans Westra amongst others) in the controversial exhibition Split Level View Finder: Theo Schoon and New Zealand Art at the City Gallery Wellington. The exhibition presents Schoon's work as constantly in dialogue or dispute with other cultural forms and artists. Read more...
Image: Gordon Walters, Untitled, 1945, acrylic on board, collection of the Walters Estate

Starkwhite at Art Basel Hong Kong 2019

Srarkwhite will present an exhibition on the intersection of modernism and contemporary Maori art at Art Basel Hong Kong from 29-31 March 2019, featuring works buy Paratene Matchitt and Gordon Walters. Read more...

Image: Parartene Matchitt, Quorum 2019 (detail) and Gordon Walters, Untitled, 1978, actylic and PVA on canvas, 1500 x 1200 mm. Walters courtesty of the Walters Estate 

Starkwhite at the Auckland Art Fair

We will present an exhibition of works by Gordon Walters at the 2018 edition of the Auckland Art Fair (24-27 May), in conjunction with the Walters Estate. Read more...

Image: Gordon Walters, Study for No. 2/Tirangi 1979, acrylic on paper, image size 250 x 200 mm, courtesy of the Walters Estate

Gordon Walters: New Vision at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery

The survey exhibition Gordon Walters: New Vision runs at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery until 8 April and then travels to the Auckland Art Gallery for a mid 2018 showing. The exhibition is accompanied by a substantial contribution and writing by the three exhibition curators Lucy Hammonds, Laurence Simmons and Julia Waite, along with pieces by other writers including Thomas Crowe. Read more...

Over and Over Again - The Legacy of Gordon Walters

Tina Barton will present Over and Over Again - The Legacy of Gordon Walters at the Auckland Art Gallery auditorium on Wednesday 17 May from 12 - 1.30pm. Her lecture is part of a post-graduatate seminar series presented by the Elam School of Fine Arts and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. The lecture is open to the public.
Image: photograph of Gordon Walters taken by Margaret Orbell

Walters Estate issues limited edition screen print

The Walters Estate has issued a limited edition screen print of the Painting No. 7. which is in the collection of Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. For further details, including price, please email contact@starkwhite.co.nz or call +64 9 3070703.

Starkwhite at Art Basel Hong Kong installation views

Installation views of our booth at Art Basel Hong Kong (2016), featuring works by Arnold Manaaki Wilson, Gordon Walters and Fiona Pardington.

Starkwhite at Art Basel Hong Kong

We'll be at Art Basel Hong Kong next week. The fair runs from 24-26 March with collector preview days on the 22nd and 23rd. It will be our fifth consecutive presentation at ABHK and the second time we have had an artist selected for the curated Encounters section of the fair. You can read more about our presentation here and Richard Maloy's Yellow Structure here. During the week of the fair Starkwhite will be open Tuesday - Friday 11am to 5pm and Saturday 11am to 3pm.

Starkwhite at Art Basel Hong Kong 2016

We'll be showing again at Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 - our fourth presentation at this fair, starting with The Immortalisation of Billy Apple® (2013) and followed by solo shows by Gordon Walters (2014) and Michael Zavros (2015). In 2014 we also presented an installation by Rebecca Baumann in the Encounters section of the fair curated by Yuko Hasegawa. You can see a full exhibitor list for Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 here.
Images (from the top): Michael Zavros, installation view; Gordon Walters, installation view; Rebecca Baumann (Automated Colour Field (Variation V), detail; and The Immortaliatisation of Billy Apple®, installation view 

Gordon Walters: Gouaches and a Painting from the 1950s

Our current exhibition Gordon Walters: Gouaches and a Painting from the 1950s, curated by Laurence Simmons and presented in partnership with the Walters Estate, runs to 24 October. A text by Simmons on the exhibition is also available on request - contact@starkwhite.co.nz
Images: installation view of Gordon Walters: Gouaches and a Painting from the 1950s (top), Gordon Walters, 1st Study for Then, gouache 245 x 310 mm (middle), Gordon Walters, Untitled, 1955, gouache, 245 x 310 mm (bottom). All images courtesy Walters Estate 

A new flag for New Zealand?

Image: Michael Smythe's design for a New Zealand flag based on Gordon Walters' koru paintings.

Brand power at work in Hong Kong

Never has brand power been more in evidence at an art event than at Art Basel Hong Kong 2014, says John McDonald in the Sydney Morning Herald. He also discusses why the fair puts such emphasis on curatorial projects (like Yuko Hasegawa's Encounters section), lectures and forums. Read more...
Gordon Walters, Chrysanthemum (1944), oil on card, courtesy of the Walters Estate. Chrsysanthemum was exhibited in the Starkwhite survey of GordonWalters' work at Art Basel Hong Kong, 2014, with the support of Creative New Zealand  

A very positive take on Art Basel Hong Kong

Art Basel Hong Kong is over and the reviews are starting to appear. Here is one of the first from Nic Forest, which mentions our Walters exhibition. Read more...

Image: Gordon Walters, Untitled, 1978, acrylic on paper, 340 x 450mm. Courtesy of the Walters Estate and presented in the Starkwhite exhibition at Art Basel Hong Kong with the support of Creative New Zealand

Art Basel Hong Kong vernissage tonight

The VIP Preview is underway at Art Basel Hong Kong and will be followed by the vernisage at 5pm. We'll post vernissage shots tomorrow.
Image: installation views of Starkwhite's presentation of Gordon Walters at Art Basel Hong Kong (Booth1D20), presented in partnership with the Walters Estate and with support from Creative New Zealand

Gordon Walters at Art Basel Hong Kong

Today we are installing our Gordon Walters exhibition in the Galleries section of Art Basel Hong Kong.

Walters is best known for his paintings employing the koru, the curving bulb form from Maori moko and kowhaiwhai rafter patterns. He Mondrian-ised the koru, straightening and regimenting its scroll-like forms, taking it from organic to strictly geometric. Our presentation at the fair includes koru paintings produced between 1956 and 1983, along with Chrysanthemum (1944) which is considered to be one of his most important early works.

Walters is a revered figure in New Zealand, recognised for a long and productive career spanning four decades. However, aside from Australia where his work has been seen in Headlands: thinking through New Zealand Art at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (1992) and the 5th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (2006-2007), Walters’ work has not found its way onto the international stage. This provides an opportunity for Starkwhite, in partnership with the Walters Estate, to stage a solo exhibition of his paintings at one of the world’s great art fairs where it will be seen by international curators, exhibition makers and influential collectors -  a step towards granting Walters the international recognition he so richly deserves. 

Our Gordon Walters exhibition at Art Basel Hong Kong is presented with the support of Creative New Zealand.
Image: Gordon Walters, Untitled, oil and acrylic on canvas, 1520 x1220mm, courtesy of the Walters Estate

Starkwhite at Art Basel Hong Kong

Starkwhite and the Walters Estate will present an exhibition of works by pioneer abstract artist Gordon Walters at this year's edition of Art Basel Hong Kong.

Walters is a revered figure in New Zealand, recognised for a long and productive career spanning four decades. The Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki presented a retrospective exhibition his work in 1983 and a survey exhibition Parallel Lines in 1994, and he has been included in many survey shows, including A Very Peculiar Practice: Aspects of Recent New Zealand Art at the City Gallery, Wellington (1995). His place in New Zealand's art history is also memorialised in the bi-annual Walters Prize exhibition and award at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki.

However, aside from Australia where his work has been seen in Headlands: Thinking through New Zealand art at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art (1992) and the 5th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (2006-2007), Walters' work has not found its way onto an international stage. This provides an opportunity for Starkwhite and the Walters Estate to stage a solo show of his work at one of the world's great art fairs where it will be seen by international curators, exhibition makers and influential collectors.

The Gallery will also present a new work by Perth-based artist Rebecca Baumann commissioned for the Encounters section of Art Basel Hong Kong, which has been curated by Yuko Hasegawa, chief curator at Tokyo's Museum of Contemporary Art. Baumann's Automated Colour Field (Variation V) consists of 132 split-panel flip clocks, each with the number cards replaced with cards of solid colour, creating a vast and constantly changing field of colour.

Starkwhite first presented Baumann's work in the exhibition Bazinga! curated by Robert Leonard and staged in 2013 as a joint venture with Brisbane's Institute of Modern Art, and again later in the year at the Auckland Art Fair and inaugural edition of Sydney Contemporary.

Images: Gordon Walters, Arahura, screenprint (1982), 760 x 565mm (top); Rebecca Baumann, Automated Colour Field (Variation V), 2014 (detail), 132 flip-clocks, laser-cut paper, batteries, 1550 x 3950 x 90mm (bottom)