What it is Not / 6 Jun – 2 Aug 2020

Don Driver, ‘Pacific Salt’. Mixed media using a variety of collaged fabric and found items. Collection of the Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui. Purchased with a Q.E.II Arts Council Grant, 1981.

What it is Not – Abstract Works from the Sarjeant Collection

6 June – 2 August 2020

“The only way to say what abstract is, is to say what it is not.” – Ad Reinhardt

To define abstract art is quite challenging, as this quote by Ad Reinhardt (b.1913, d.1967), an influential American abstract painter, so aptly sums up. This selection of works from the collection demonstrates the wide scope of New Zealand abstraction: from the calm Minimalism of Stephen Bambury’s (b. 1951) ‘Grey Transmuting’; the crusty Colour Field of Geoff Thornley’s (b.1942) ‘Grey/Albus No. 10’; to the Lyrical abstraction of Judy Millar’s (b.1947) untitled drawing with paint; and the Abstract Expressionist colour explosion of Allen Maddox’s (b.1948, d.2000) ‘Life’s Hurdles’.