Frank Wylie-James Joyce at Studio Gallery

Frank Wylie was born on Vancouver Island in 1937, and has been in NZ since 1958.

From 1963 to 1968, Frank studied political science at Victoria University, graduating with a BA Hons. Following this, he went to work in the Parliamentary Library for two years and during this time, gained a diploma from the NZ Library Association.

From 1977 -1978 Frank and his family traveled to Beijing where they stayed and lived for two years. Here Frank worked as a ‘polisher’ on an Chinese-English dictionary. On return to NZ, Frank again worked in libraries, spending a year at the Alexander Turnbull Library, and then eight years as librarian at the National Museum.

Being pre-occupied with art all his life, at 50, Frank decided he did not want to be a librarian anymore, and wanted to pursue his artistic talents- so, at 50, he became a full-time artist.

During 1990-1991, Frank lived on a dairy farm on the Taranaki Coast, which he describes as a very important time in his artistic development, and here he juggled milking cows and painting landscape.

Given that Frank was born in 1937, he describes the most important early visual influences he experienced as comic strips- and he still holds this period as a high point in the history of the comic strip form, as it occurred just before the advent of television.

In describing comic strips, Frank refers to the art form as “imposing very strict disciplines on the artist who wishes to explore it… it has a lot a restrictions”. He compares comic strips to the lines around the tennis court saying “you have to keep the ball within the lines”.

In this exhibition, Frank has used the comic strip form to tell the story of an old boys’ reunion, which welcomes James Joyce as its host artist.

The Studio Gallery
385 New North Road
Kingsland
Auckland

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