Archive 2016
Andrew Barber
The Curator for the 2016 award was Emma Bugden. Emma is a curator currently based in Whanganui. Emma has previously worked as Programmes Manager / Senior Curator at The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt; Director of ARTSPACE, Auckland; Curatorial Director of Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Manukau City; and Curator at City Gallery Wellington. She has undertaken residencies at PROGRAM, Berlin and NIFCA, Helsinki, and was part of the 2010 International curators program at Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Visual Art, Glasgow. She has written for a range of art publications.
The recipient of the 2016 award was Andrew Barber.
Andrew is an outstanding New Zealand artist with work held in private and public collections including the National Collection at Te Papa and the Chartwell Collection at the Auckland Art Gallery. He is represented by Hopkinson Mossman Gallery in Auckland and Peter McLeavey Gallery in Wellington.
In Andrew Barber’s recent painting specific, often contrary, art historical conventions are brought together to inform and blur each other, proposing a practice that is, on one hand, indebted to the privileged tropes of Modernism, and on the other, revels in conflating these styles with their popular derivations. Whether intimate or architectural in scale, Barber’s work is also always about painting’s physicality. He creates works by deconstructing and reconstructing paintings through their basic elements - canvas, paint, wood stretchers- and all his products bear incidental marks of their production.
Barber’s diverse painting practice is connected by an interest in light, used both as subject matter – orchestrated on the surface as hazy skyscape, diffused and shifting through the changing colours of his striped canvasses – or, in his patchwork paintings, deployed as an external influence. Originally devised as a practical solution to enable the construction of bigger paintings, the patchworked canvasses are unpainted, leaving a surface textured by seams and contrasting grains of fabric that refract that artwork’s surroundings.
In 2016 Andrew completed the following projects, many of which were accompanied by events organised for patrons:
• Necessary Distraction – Auckland Art Gallery
• Painting – Hopkinson Mossman
• Movement (with Jeena Shin) – Dowse Art Museum
• The Key to the Fields (with Bill Culbert) – Hopkinson Mossman
• Painting: a transitive space – St Paul Street Gallery
• Therapist – Peter McLeavey Gallery
Andrew Barber – Painting, 2016
Installation view: Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland
Elliot Street (Window), 2016
oil on linen
1300 x 1300mm
Detail of Ficus (The Argument: Re Indoor Plants)
Oil on linen
2700 × 2700mm
Peter McLeavey Gallery
Andrew Barber + Jeena Shin, Movement, 2016, The Dowse.
Photo: Mark Tantrum
Study (Over the horizon), 2015
oil on canvas
600 x 600mm
Study (Imperial Level 1), 2012
patchwork cotton, polycotton
850 x 850mm
Study (Hedge), 2012
oil on canvas
450 x 450mm
Study (Good stick lipstick), 2013
oil on linen
250 x 250mm
Monochrome (studs), 2011
indellible ink, acyrlic on linen
3900 x 3900 cm
installation view: Y3K, Melbourne
Installation view: The Sea, Hopkinson Mossman (2013)
Study (Dromorne Rd - Putiki St), 2012
patchwork cotton, polycotton
3250 x 3250mm
installation view: New Revised Edition, City Gallery, Wellington
Andrew Barber – Curriculum vitae
Born 1978, Auckland, New Zealand
Selected Exhibitions
2016
Auckland Art Gallery (group) (forthcoming)
Hopkinson Mossman, London (solo) forthcoming)
The Dowse, Lower Hutt (group) (forthcoming)
2015
Ngā Toi | Arts Te Papa, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington (group)
2014
A world undone: Works from the Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland (group)
When I paint my masterpiece, Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland (group)
From under the house, Peter McLeavey, Wellington (solo)
2013
Flags, Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland (solo)
New Revised Edition, City Gallery Wellington (group)
2012
Hedge, Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland (solo)
The New Fair, Melbourne (Hopkinson Cundy booth)
The Imperial Project, 44 Queen St, Auckland (group)
2011
Black and Blue, Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington (solo)
Monochromes, 30 Customs St East, Auckland (solo)
Studs, Y3K, Melbourne (solo)
Big Refrigerator, Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland (group)
2010
Studies, Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland (solo)
The Department Store, Auckland (solo)
Zodiac (curated by Erica van Zon), Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington (group)
Two Man Shoe (with Nick Austin), Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington (two-person)
2009
Dreamhome/Shithouse, Gambia Castle, Auckland (solo)
PICNIC, Customs St studio, Auckland (solo)
Cross Colouring (curated by Harriet Morgan and Sarah Hopkinson), Hell Gallery, Melbourne (group)
We Go Far, and Way Back, Show Gallery, New York (group)
2008
Six Man Stand-up Tent: Real Men Were Homos, Gambia Castle, Auckland (solo)
Lean, Starkwhite, Auckland (solo)
The Leisure Suite, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, University of Columbia, New York (group)
2007
Country Painting, Starkwhite, Auckland, New Zealand (solo)
90% & Untitled (with John Reynolds) LEDGE gallery, Hamilton (solo)
Andrew Barber Andrew Barber, Gambia Castle, Auckland (solo)
...from the directors collection, SNO gallery, Sydney (group)
2006
Andrew Barber, N.O.T. Toowoomba, Queensland (solo)
Danish Designs, gone bust, lost forever..., Dep_art_ment, Auckland (solo)
CARRY ON, collaboration with Nicholas Spratt, Kylie Duncan and Kirsten Dryburgh for the NEXT WAVE Festival, Melbourne (group)
Month of April: An exhibition in four parts (curated by Julian Dashper and Simon Ingram), Canary Gallery, Auckland (group)
Painting of the Future, with Stephen Bram (curated by Ben Curnow), Canary Gallery, Auckland (group)
HEADWAY: New Artsits Show 2006, curated by Brian Butler and Laura Preston, ARTSPACE, Auckland (group)
Famous Artworks, Canary Galley, Auckland (group)
One God, No Masters, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington (group)
2005
Andrew Barber, Rm 103, Auckland
PARTY, Dep_art_ment, Auckland
Duets II, (collaborations with Sriwhana Spong and with Lisa Benson), rm 103, Auckland (group)
Fifty-nine Metres Squared, (with Ben Buchanan, Bjorn Houtman, Steve Kay and Jeena Shin), Canary Gallery, Auckland (group)
2004
Andrew Barber Breaks A Leg, Canary Gallery, Auckland
you can take the boy out of the _____ but you can't take the _____ out of the boy, Rm 103, Auckland
#2:04/06/04-04/07/04, Parade, Auckland
Ship of Fools, (in collaboration with Paula Booker), Canary Gallery, Auckland
Waterworks, rm 103, Auckland (group)
Rm Service, Enjoy Gallery, Wellington (group)
Duets, Ramp Gallery, Hamilton (group)
Snowball, Rm 103, Auckland (group)
Quite Conclusively the Best End of Year Show Ever, Rm 103, Auckland (group)
2003
Cheap L.P.(with Clinton Watkins and Bjorn Houtman), Rm 103, Auckland (group)
Images of Desire (curated by Jan van de Ploeg), Winston Hotel, Amsterdam (group)
2002
Opposite the Studio of Contemporary Art, (with John Appleton, Paula Booker and James A. Wallace), Level 2, 6 Kingdon St, Auckland (group)
Zip (with John Appleton, Paula Booker, CXD, Scott Everson and James A. Wallace), Level 2, 6 Kingdon St, Auckland (group)
1999
Only the Lonely, (performance for Hadleigh Averill), Artspace, Auckland (group)
Relocation, (Performance with Hadleigh Averill) Artstation, Auckland (group)
Contributions / Governance
2007-2010
Gambia Castle founder and board member
2003 – 2006
Room103 co-director/board member
Selected Bibliography
John Hurrell, ‘Andrew Barber’, Australian Art Collector, Issue 57, July-September 2011
John Hurrell, ‘New Barber works’, Eyecontact site, 15 December 2010
David Levinson, ‘Andrew Barber: Andrew Barber’, The Delivery: Gambia Castle exhibitions 2007, published Gambia Castle Press, 2008
Ben Curnow (ed.), New New Zealand Art, Canary Gallery, Auckland and MOP, Sydney, 2003.
John Hurrell, 'A Good Team: Andrew Barber and John Reynolds at Ledge Gallery' on Artbash weblog, 3 March 2007.
Tessa Laird (ed.), Nights of our Lives, rm103, Auckland, 2005.
David Levinson, 'Andrew Barber: Washroom' in Lumiere Reader, August 2006.
'Fresh Paint' in Urbis 33, 2006.