Gregory O'Brien - Author Talk

A Micronaut in the Wide World.

Gregory O’Brien’s new book, a stimulating rediscovery of the work of one of our most talented and original artists: Graham Percy (1938-2008), is a paean to the imagination and the art of drawing – and proof that art can still be joyous, impulsive and all-embracing.

Artist, designer and illustrator Graham Percy travelled far and built a career on the closely observed detail. Born in Taranaki in 1938, Percy spent apprentice years in Auckland before moving to London, where with his photographer-partner Mari Mahr he created a workshop-home, a microcosm of the outside world.

Fellow-venturer Gregory O’Brien presents an account of Graham Percy’s life and art by way of motorbike and hot-air balloon, through sketches and bookshelves, touching on childhood losses and adult nostalgia.

A Micronaut in the Wide World: The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy showcases Percy’s early design work, vivid children’s book illustration and thriving mature art. The drawings reveal Percy’s passion for the small and hand-drawn and for quirky histories, remembered and imagined; featuring a cast of curious characters ranging from homesick kiwis to Commedia dell’Arte players. In vivid, exuberant detail, O’Brien gives us a stimulating rediscovery of a remarkable artist.

Kate de Goldi called this book “a little gem: a telescope fixed intently on the singular, driving preoccupations of a wonderful artist’s working life. Inspirational.”

Gregory O’Brien is a poet, anthologist, essayist and art critic who has published widely in New Zealand, Australia and England. His recent publications include News of the Swimmer Reaches Shore (2007), Back and Beyond: New Zealand Art for the Young and Curious (2008) and Euan Macleod: The Painter in the Painting (2010). A collaborative book project with Mari Mahr, photographer and Graham Percy’s second wife, Two Walk in Edinburgh, is forthcoming in 2011. O’Brien is the curator of a major exhibition of Graham Percy’s art which is touring across New Zealand in 2011-13, opening in Auckland at the Gus Fisher Gallery on 7 May.

Whare Wananga (Level 2)
Meet at 5.30pm for a welcome glass of wine courtesy of Glengarry Wines

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