Julian Dashper

1984–1987

16 Jul — 15 Aug 2020

Michael Lett gallery presents an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Julian Dashper from 1984–1987.

Dashper’s painting engaged with and appropriated the resurgent international interest in painting that had dominated art markets and centres in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Impressive in their own right, these artworks are about this recent history of art as much as they are their own subjects.

The works in this exhibition channel a persistent enquiry into the conditions and histories of art and art-making, the intractable politics of regionalism, the parochial New Zealand obsession with landscape, and the dynamics of doubling and reproduction—all themes that Dashper would return to throughout his career.

Julian Dashper
Regent
1985
oil and conté on canvas
diptych, total dimensions 1800 x 3000mm

Exhibition History:
Content/Context: A Survey of Recent New Zealand Art, National Art Gallery, Wellington, 1986
Julian Dashper – A Survey, Centre for Contemporary Art, Hamilton, 1987

“When you look at a good painting you don’t have to work out how or why it was painted, because you are too busy thinking how much sense it makes.

This is a big painting.”

– Julian Dashper, 1987

Julian Dashper
Bridge Under Construction, Dome Valley
1987
oil and conté on canvas
diptych, total dimensions 2010 x 1810mm

“He was deeply committed to responding to where he was in terms of his locations, the specificity of his locations. But at the same time gave you something that didn’t look like anything to do with the traditions of New Zealand art history that we’d inherited.”

– Christina Barton

Julian Dashper
Untitled
1984
oil and pencil on canvas
1500 x 1800mm

Exhibition History:
New Vision Gallery, Auckland, 1985

Julian Dashper
Halley’s Comet at Silverdale
1985
oil and pastel on canvas
diptych, total dimensions 755 x 835mm

Exhibition History:
after McCahon: Some Configurations in Recent Art, Auckland City Art Gallery, 1989

“Dashper’s work was full of in-jokes. For outsiders, it could seem dry and arcane. But for those whose business was the art world and its machinations, it was witty and consequential.”

– Robert Leonard