Denys Watkins, If these walls could Talk

Denys Watkins is a highly respected contemporary artist with a career spanning 5 decades. In the early stage of his career, he was widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s finest printmakers, a media since superseded by painting and watercolour. Watkins’ distinctive and ingenious abstract paintings show a keen fascination and curiosity about the world. While lately his attentions have focused more on environmental concerns, over his career he has drawn on a wide visual encyclopedia of cultural references, taking source inspiration from any area deemed relevant or necessary to a particular composition or series. These include abstractions of coral; billowing mushroom clouds; Hindu Monkey Gods; the tangled roots of orchid plants; and obscure lyrics from 1970s songs.

The paintings in this new solo exhibition If these walls could Talk, bring together recent paintings, supplemented by works from the last few years, that complement and extend Denys’ visual language.