Alan Ibell
Alan Ibell’s pared back paintings and sparsely populated landscapes convey psychologically charged environments. They contain just a smattering of narrative across a subdued pastel ground—a lone figure, a floating jug, a desolate landscape—enough to convey ideas without becoming abstract.
Alan Ibell is a contemporary artist and painter. Born 1983 Ōtautahi, he lives in Te Whanganui-a-tara, Wellington
Alan’s painting practice explores narrative and figuration alongside the uncanny and the Antipodean Gothic. Borrowing imagery from dreams, memories, personal anxieties and existential musings, Alan creates visual allegories of a perilous paradise that is tranquil, inescapable, and disjointed. Subtly citing frescos by painters of the early Renaissance period—Giotto, Fra Angelico and Piero della Francesca—the soft and delicately rendered texture of his paintings feel as if they are mixed deep into plaster. His use of dislocation and non-linear perspective suggest a fragmented narrative, a question of consciousness. Something isn’t quite right, questioning what is real and what is imagined.
Visually Alan leaves us a great deal of time with our own thoughts. His pared back paintings and sparsely populated landscapes convey psychologically charged environments. They contain just a smattering of narrative across a subdued pastel ground—a lone figure, a floating jug, a desolate landscape—enough to convey ideas without becoming abstract. The more space he leaves, the more our own memories fill in the blanks, allowing for both contemplation and a little subconscious wandering. His works hold no specific clues to a location or an idea of place. They delicately oscillate in the space between the banal and the surreal, the physical and the imagined.
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He Came Down from the Mountain with a Piece of the Mountain to Build a New Mountain, 2022View more details
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She Came Down from the Mountain with a Piece of the Mountain to Build a New Mountain, 2022View more details
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Alan Ibell
Vessels, 2021
Jhana Millers Gallery
Installation image
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Plus 1
15 May - 7 Jun 2025Jhana Millers presents Plus 1, a group exhibition where a selection of gallery artists each invite a creative companion to exhibit alongside them.Read more -
Summer Selection – Portraits
29 Jan - 15 Feb 2025Read more -
Alan Ibell, Libations
26 Sep - 19 Oct 2024Jhana Millers is pleased to present Libation's by Alan IbellRead more -
Editions
9 May - 1 Jun 2024Jhana Millers is pleased to present their first print exhibition featuring a group of represented artists.Read more -
FIVE
7 - 29 Jul 2023Jhana Millers is pleased to present a group exhibition of work by the gallery's represented artists to celebrate the gallery's 5th anniversaryRead more -
Alan Ibell, DWELLINGS
11 May - 3 Jun 2023Jhana Millers is pleased to present their fourth solo exhibition with Alan Ibell, DWELLINGSRead more -
Summer Selection
25 Jan - 11 Feb 2023Jhana Millers reopens for 2023 with a selection of works by gallery artists.Read more -
Alan Ibell, A New Mountain
15 Sep - 8 Oct 2022We are pleased to present a body of new work by Alan Ibell.Read more -
Alan Ibell, Vessels
15 Sep - 9 Oct 2021Alan Ibell, Vessels. Exhibition at Jhana Millers Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, Aotearoa New ZealandRead more -
Alan Ibell, A Place to Put the Ghosts
22 Mar - 16 May 2020Allan Ibell, A Place to Put the Ghosts. Exhibition at Jhana Millers Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, Aotearoa New ZealandRead more -
Group Exhibition, ONE
15 - 27 Jul 2019Group exhibition, ONE. Exhibition at Jhana Millers Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, Aotearoa New ZealandRead more
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Alan Ibell
Lydia Baxendell, The artist -
Unseen, yet present - Aspects of Alan Ibell's Paintings
Michael Dunn, Art New Zealand Issue 179, September 22, 2021 -
Alan Ibell, Bricks
Sophie Thorn, Exhibition essay, August 1, 2021 -
What Next? Introducing the work of three artists you should keep an eye on
Andrew Wood, Art Collector, April 20, 2021 -
'Alan Ibell' 20 / 20: Twenty Artists / Twenty Writers / One New Zealand Gallery
Peter Dornauf, Sanderson Contemporary Art, January 1, 2017 -
'Alan Ibell' 20 / 20: Twenty Artists / Twenty Writers / One New Zealand Gallery
Jaimee Stockman-Young, Sanderson Contemporary Art , January 1, 2015 -
Ibell acrylic takes top prize
Otago Daily Times, November 4, 2010 -
Ibell wins major award
Otago Daily Times, August 6, 2009 -
Art seen: A series of floating islands
James Dignan, Otago Daily times, July 2, 2009
