Walking, Eating, Talking and Sex

Walking, Eating, Talking and Sex

New paintings by Trevor Pye

Idiom Studio, Wellington
10 May – 3 June 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tabletops are where we meet, make decisions and plan our lives, quite apart from eating and drinking. The tabletop is a platform, a stage, for life’s dramas, tragedies and banalities.

Bay of Plenty artist Trevor Pye’s next exhibition at Idiom Studio, Walking, Eating, Talking and Sex, is the latest in his Tabletop series, begun several years ago to explore the theme of the human condition; how people interact with each other, ideas and with objects.

In the Tabletop works, Pye breaks down the barriers between illustration and painting. Essentially, they are about family.

On Reading the Kalevala results from the artist’s recent discovery that he could trace his family back to Finnish origins. The Kalevala is a Finnish epic combining verse and oral traditions. Scattered in uniform swirls over the surface of the painting are a myriad of words - the narrative of his ancestors.

The inclusion of text and mixed media make these paintings a sumptuous feast. Often divided into smaller compartments, the Tabletops can hold one story or several.

Although he has exhibited in New Zealand and internationally over many years, Pye is perhaps better known as the visual creator of children’s book characters such as Grandma McGarvey. As this iconic granny reaches her twentieth year in print, she will allow her creator no let-up, despite his efforts to escape her.

Yet it is the intricate, witty and complex works of the ongoing Tabletop series which allow Pye to speak in his own remarkable voice. Trevor’s tabletops reveal an artist with sensitivity, ambiguity and a dash of the provocative.

ENDS

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