Roger Mortimer: The Messenger

Bartley + Company Art invites you to the opening preview of Roger Mortimer's solo show, The Messenger. Tuesday 24 May 5.30 - 7.30pm.

His highly-lacquered recent paintings, combining the imagery of medieval cartography with recognisable contemporary maps, have captured the public imagination.

In these works, ancient and modern collide in surprising and surreal juxtapositions of mythology and technology. As tales of the Holy Grail portray quests for wisdom, so too Mortimer’s paintings variously described as “elegant” and “carefully rendered jewel-like images” represent his search for a personal cosmology to make sense of contemporary global turbulence. As viewers, we are drawn into the quest to decipher the clues, codes, symbols and signs depicted in his enchanting maps of enigmatic landscapes.

Critic John Hurrell has described Mortimer’s work as “an allegorical scrambling of time and geography that pushes at the limits of the human imagination.

“Not only is the work oddly surreal, varied in references and humorously startling but it is also very physical. The delicate colour glows as if the liquid translucent hues have been applied to metallic sheets. The varnish covered painted surface has a highly reflective gloss which brings a delicate but gorgeously diffuse golden quality to the light. This makes the image slightly immaterial or ethereal.“ [eyecontactsite.com]

This new exhibition comprises three large works on canvas, two smaller water-colours and a painting on a surfboard – the latter reflecting the artist’s other passion. Mortimer, who has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland, is included in Warwick Brown’s 2009 book seen this century, which identifies 100 New Zealand artists who have come to prominence this century.

Event listed by Alison Bartley

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