The Rose of Paracelsus recent paintings

The Rose of Paracelsus recent paintings

Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington 7 - 23 December 2004, 11 - 29 January 2005

Please join us and Max Gimblett at the opening of his exhibition on Tuesday 7 December, 5.30pm

Max Gimblett will be available for interview in Wellington from Monday 6 December.

For more information or to arrange an interview please contact Alison Bartley in the gallery: Tel: 64 4 801 9795 Mobile: 027 4436 123

A jpeg image is attached of the title painting The Rose of Paracelsus, 2004 gesso, pencil, pigment, expoxy, gold on canvas 635 mm Please contact us if you would like a higher resolution, print quality image.

New Zealand painter Max Gimblett returns to Wellington this December from his home in New York to open two new shows. The Rose of Paracelsus recent paintings opens at the Bartley Nees Gallery on Tuesday 7 December and a major survey show The brush of all things, travels from Auckland Art Gallery to open at the City Gallery, Wellington on 12 December.

Max Gimblett has been described as one of New Zealand¹s "most internationally prominent and successful artists" and Bartley Nees Gallery is proud to present his first solo exhibition with the gallery. The two exhibitions will provide Wellingtonians with a rare opportunity for a comprehensive viewing of the work of this important artist who has not shown in the capital for six years.

Raised in New Zealand, Gimblett has lived and painted in the United States for almost 40 years and has exhibited widely in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Gimblett¹s art is an art that communicates across cultural boundaries. As Chris Saines, director of the Auckland Art Gallery writing in the foreword to the catalogue The brush of all things, said: "His art has its progenitors and its roots in New York Len Lye central among them but its branches are fully extended in their embrace of Asia and the Pacific Rim. He is decidedly of here but determinedly from thereŠ In spirit and intent a work by Gimblett often forms in the spaces between things."

Drawing inspiration from wide-ranging sources, Gimblett¹s art is born out of 20th century abstract expressionism and early modernist concerns to express the spiritual in art and inflected by his interest in Asian art and religion.

"Almost everything that Max Gimblett creates holds and carries with it these signs of convergence between contemporary art forms and living cultures or between ancient belief systems and their latent iconographies. His is an art that has long gathered up and been nourished by such dualisms, a site for the testing of ideas and beliefs, a place in which apparent opposites can and do find sanctuary," wrote Chris Saines.

The title of the exhibition The Rose of Paracelsus is taken from the short story by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges about the early Renaissance physician and alchemist Paracelsus who is regarded as one of the fathers of modern medicine.

Like the ancient alchemist or artist, Gimblett works with elemental materials, often including precious metals such as gold, silver and copper, to transform substance and meaning. As in the Borges story, the search for meaning involves a focus on process as well as the ultimate goal. In Gimblett¹s work titles allude to references and potential readings suggesting that although the work is abstract it is not to be experienced or read on a purely formal level.

The paintings in the Bartley Nees Gallery exhibition challenge the nature of materials, surprising and delighting with the their mix of luscious luminosity and stark austerity. Ranging in scale and form with several employing the distinctive Gimblett trademark quatrefoil support, as seen in the title painting The Rose of Paracelsus (see attached jpeg), they demand reflection, engagement and sheer enjoyment.

Max Gimblett will be available for interview in Wellington from Monday 6 December.

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