Fine Arts, Sydney

Peter Stichbury

Animals of God

23 August - 21 September, 2019

Opening Friday 23 August, 6 - 8pm

Exhibition view: Peter Stichbury, ‘Joseph Geraci, 1977’, 2019. Fine Arts, Sydney

Exhibition view: Peter Stichbury, ‘Joseph Geraci, 1977’, 2019. Fine Arts, Sydney

Peter Stichbury, ‘Animals of God’, 2019.

Bodily death, rather than occurring as a single annihilating event, is an extended process that takes several hours to be fully complete. Modern, innovative resuscitation techniques can interrupt and reverse the death process tens of minutes, and even longer, into that shutting down process, meaning many more people can be brought back from death than ever before.

Leading researcher into the scientific study of death, and the human mind-brain relationship, Associate Professor Sam Parnia of NYU Langone School of Medicine, recorded that in a significant group of resuscitated patients, consciousness survives bodily death, with the patient reporting an out of body experience in which corroborated veridical perceptions occur well beyond the cessation of the heartbeat, respiration and cortical activity.

A small number of these patients report their consciousness, after a certain point, withdrew from the scene of death and seemed to enter another dimension. Notable in their reports is the homogeneity across gender, age-group, time, culture, and philosophical convictions: they recall a bright omniscient light, benevolent guiding figures, an eternal sense of time, a deep feeling of peace and of being loved.

This anecdotal evidence has sparked the emerging science of consciousness after death, which seeks to probe, via rigorous scientific research, a phenomenon which has traditionally been relegated to the more mystical disciplines of philosophy, theology and fiction.

Stichbury acknowledges the mystery inherent in the reported experience of an individual’s intact, personal consciousness visiting another dimension. He explores notions of a potential afterlife, imagining life as a corporeal university for our souls, while also considering brain-based explanations positing that the dying brain chemically produces uniform hallucinations.

‘Animals of God’ represents a further meditation on the theme of mystery initiated in his previous explorations into consciousness and the possibility of life elsewhere in our universe. Stichbury observes the human drive to conquer and dissect the unknown, and the role played by today’s heretics, who step away from accepted truths in an attempt to harvest new ones.

Four individual case studies follow of after death experiences:

‘Joseph Geraci, 1977’

One week after undergoing a straightforward hemorrhoidectomy, Joseph Geraci began hemorrhaging and bled to death. When his heart stopped he had lost over 11 pints of blood - less than 1 pint of blood remained inside his body. He was clinically dead for around 4 to 5 minutes. During that time he remained conscious. He reports the severe pain lifted, and everything became very quiet. He found himself without any physical dimension, in a beautiful bright light.

He says the five senses necessary to perceive this world are not necessary where he was. “You are all knowing. Verbally it cannot be expressed, it’s something that becomes you, and you become it. You could say that I was peace, I was love, I was the brightness, it was part of me.”

He describes it as a state of eternity, where rather than experiences being lined up sequentially, everything occurs at once. It is somewhere he has always been, and will always be. Physical life is a very brief instant. He compares the quality of lovingness to the innocence, integrity and guilelessness of a child.

He came back into his body and again felt pain and fear. He was profoundly angry that the doctors had brought him back. “After experiencing perfection, something so beautiful, I wanted to hold on to it.” The following six months were the most difficult of his life.

Every time he tried to describe the experience to his wife, he would become very upset and tearful. He found it difficult to reacclimate into everyday life, for example television felt false and insignificant. He had to turn off any type of violence, because he could no longer find a reason which validated it. It took a long time to integrate the experience and readjust, to understand that there is significance in this life.

Since his after death experience Geraci believes the only reason he is here is simply to love. He finds it upsetting if he becomes angry or is rude to anyone because it seems like a violation of his purpose. He has detached from worldly measures of success including climbing the corporate ladder and the vanity of preoccupation with image. He sees existence as a continuum, with bodily death occurring at any point along that continuum. Post-death he believes his consciousness goes on.

‘Andy Petrou 1955’

A few days before graduation, Andy Petrou was attending a lakeside senior school picnic. He decided to swim, alone, to a raft far out on the lake. While swimming he suffered severe cramps in the deep water and sank to the bottom, where he became stuck in the mud. He struggled to free himself and get to the surface. During his struggle, a calm voice invited him to stop his struggle for one moment. He did, and immediately was pulled out of his body.

Below, he could see himself stuck in the mud on the bottom of the lake. Instead of the freezing temperature of the lake, he felt warm and filled with a sense of love and peace he says he can’t accurately articulate.

He looked up into a tunnel of bright, yet soft light. He describes finding himself inside a large sphere filled with miniature moving pictures of his life. He began reliving his life, experiencing every emotion that was taking place in the moving pictures. He doesn’t know how long this process went on. “When you’re in the eternal now, time doesn’t make any sense…it’s happening all at once.”

Then he found himself in front of a warm, glowing, forgiving light. “The light had no judgment, there was no condemnation, there was no blaming, no shame, there was nothing but love and acceptance. The light was viewing me, everything that I ever thought, did, or will do, it knew everything.”

The light was an immense form, like nothing he had ever seen before, and behind it were billions and billions of other lights. It welcomed him and told him it loved him, that they loved him, and not to be afraid. “It absorbed me into the light, so I was part of the light. And once I was in the light, I knew everything the light knew. I knew all about the universe.”

Petrou talks about the sense of humour the light has. He says they laughed about how seriously he had taken the small things in his life, and the absurdity of some of his choices.

The light told him he had to go back. He protested, but then he felt himself re-enter his body, when he was again filled with pain and anxiety. He was on the beach and his friends were pushing water out of his lungs. He was crying, because he was no longer in the light. During the entire episode, he says he was fully aware and never lost consciousness.

‘Vita Ventra, 1978’

Vita Ventra was in a car accident in which she was thrown from the car and suffered a fractured clavicle, lacerations all over her body and damage to her jaw. She reports that as the pain worsened, her breathing became shallower. At a certain point she became aware that she was no longer in pain, and that she had separated from her body. As she hovered over her body from a height, she saw a man put a blanket over it.

She says she felt like an invisible gas, with no gender, mass, shape, odour, or colour. She felt herself rising higher, but noticed her hearing was very acute. She could hear people talking on the ground as though she was standing beside them. She says she experienced an intensely beautiful light, and saw that death is just a beginning.

“If you really love somebody, you’ve got to be happy for where they’re going. It’s as though you’re being held in a cradle of love. It’s an adventure and you’re not alone.”

She decided she had to come back into her body. When she woke up, she again experienced the severe pain of her injuries. She didn’t speak of her experience to anyone for many years.

‘Lani Leary, 1982’

Lani Leary went into anaphylactic shock when her dentist administered nitrous oxide during a routine dental appointment. While the dentist was working to revive her, she found herself staring down at her own body from the ceiling. “As I looked at my 29 year old body I felt like it was a piece of clothing. I had a fondness for it, I knew it, I had used it well, but it was time to go… I wasn’t connected to it.”

She says she entered a beautiful opalescent blue tunnel, during which time she was without pain, fear or anxiety. Her mother, who had been dead 15 years, was there with her arms outstretched to Lani. “She was beautiful and whole and vibrant and healthy, and she did not die that way.”

She describes a bright yet gentle light at the other end. “The light was in front of me, and then the light was around me, and then I was in the light and then I knew I was the light. As a drop of water in the ocean is not separate, the light and I were made of the same substance.” She felt she was home - loved beyond all measure, and forgiven.

Then she was told she had to go back, that she still had work to do. She felt herself churned backwards into her body. She had no sense of passing time, but the dentist reported her body showed no vital signs for around 10 minutes.

Her life profoundly changed as a result of her after death experience. At first she felt disoriented and found it difficult to acclimatize back into life. “This is like sludging through mud compared to the ease and the love that’s there.”

Leary began working in hospice care and is now a dedicated advocate for helping people die well. She has supported over 500 terminally ill people in the lead-up to their deaths. She advises to listen to the dying, because their stories are helping them process their lives. She says to touch, massage and be physically present for the dying, because they often feel ugly and as though they have lost their value. Lastly she says to give the dying permission to go, to let them know they are not abandoning the people they love, that those left behind will be ok.

She says helping those we love die well also helps those left behind. She cites her own grief at her mother’s death, which was exaggerated many years by her regret for not being able to say goodbye, for not telling her mother she loved her, and for not being present for her death.

Peter Stichbury

Announcing the release of a new limited edition print

This new limited edition print revisits an iconic painting made close to twenty years ago. Swoon (Stendhal Syndrome), 2000, appears on the cover of the book The Alumni, which accompanied the survey exhibition of Stichbury's work presented in Auckland and Dunedin in 2008.

For full details please follow this link: Michael Lett Gallery

Peter Stichbury Swoon c-type print 910 x 790 mm Edition of 30, signed and numbered

Peter Stichbury
Swoon
c-type print
910 x 790 mm
Edition of 30, signed and numbered

Peter Stichbury

Now, Then, Next: Time and the Contemporary

Christchurch Art Gallery

15 June 2019 – 8 March 2020

Time and the contemporary in recent works from the collection

Time is a problem in the contemporary world—and has been both a subject and an over-arching presence in contemporary art for a while now. In this exhibition from the collection featuring several recent acquisitions, artists offer different ways to think about time, exploring the multiple anxieties of the future or the persistence of the past in the present. Time features here as a series of fleeting but colourful moments; as a kowhaiwhai design marked on the arm of a hospital chair; or as a cycle of eternal return in which everything that was old eventually becomes new again.

Curator Lara Strongman




Peter Stichbury

ART BUSAN

International Art Fair Korea 2019 / 30 May - 2 June 2019

Gallery Baton : Art Busan, Booth A-8

 Bae Yoon Hwan, Bin Woo Hyuk, Chung Chi Yung, David O'Kane, Djordje Ozbolt, Hoh

Woo Jung, Hugh Scott-Douglas, Koen van den Broek, Kim Sang Gyun, Koh San Keum,

Liam Gillick, Marcin Maciejowski, Peter Stichbury, Stef Driesen, Yoon Suk One

Peter Stichbury

LIGHT, NON-LIGHT

Chapter II, Seoul, Korea

September 17 - October 13, 2018

AnnaÏk Lou Pitteloud, David O’Kane, Gabriel Acevedo, Germaine Kruip, HeeSeung Chung, Koen van den Broek, Liam Gillick, Max Frisinger, Peter Stichbury, Yan Tomaszewski, Yuichi Hirako

Chapter II, 54 donggyo-ro 27 gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Korea

Peter Stichbury
Image: 'Ingo Swann perturbs a shielded quark detector at Stanford Research Institute, 1972', 2018, oil on linen, 95 x 120 cm  Altered StatesMichael Lett 30 May - 30 June, 2018312 Karangahape RoadCnr K Rd & East StAucklandNew Zealand Mc…

Image: 'Ingo Swann perturbs a shielded quark detector at Stanford Research Institute, 1972', 2018, oil on linen, 95 x 120 cm 

 

Altered States
Michael Lett

30 May - 30 June, 2018
312 Karangahape Road
Cnr K Rd & East St
Auckland
New Zealand

 

Mchael Lett is pleased to present Altered States, a new body of work by Peter Stichbury, his second exhibition with the gallery. Drawing on the case studies of individuals who have experienced a temporary shift in consciousness, Altered States considers the assimilation of this experience into the individual’s subsequent world-view, and the paradigm shift that can occur in belief structure after such an experience. 
 
American orthopedic surgeon Dr. Mary Neal drowned in a kayaking accident while holidaying in Chile in 1999, her body pinned underwater, in her kayak, without oxygen, at the base of a waterfall for at least 15 minutes. During this time she reported her consciousness peeling away from her body.  She found herself in another dimension, in which she had a profound sense of coming home to something more real than anything she had previously known. Near Death Experiences (NDE’s) like Neal’s confound rigorous scientific investigation because they are unrepeatable, and difficult to study in a way that adheres to the tight scientific protocols that render research useful. And yet NDE’s are not rare: conservatively, around 4 percent of those who come close to death experience an NDE.
 
Medicine, psychology, religion, and spirituality have all posited theories to explain NDE’s, some of those relegating the NDE and its researchers to pseudoscience. And yet true or not, there are many accounts of NDE’s having a lasting impact - individuals, post NDE, initiating profound and long-term changes towards the altruistic, in their approach to life.
 
Altered States examines other causative influences which significantly shift consciousness: ontology altering pharmacology, specifically the use of dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a naturally occurring neurotransmitter, which transports the user’s consciousness to another dimension. Logic asserts this dimension is manufactured by the drug-enhanced brain, but some proponents of DMT argue the dimension is real.  Young children between the ages of 2 and 5 who are preoccupied with past-life memories, including details which can at times be corroborated, imply another dimension beyond our human understanding of birth, death, identity and consciousness. Finally, Altered States also explores remote viewers, who claim to use the mind to sense and give information about an unseen geographical location, person or object.
 
Alongside the inevitable range of logical explanations of these shifts in consciousness, sits the mystery implied by each. Altered States considers where consciousness lies, whether we are able to accurately assess where, in terms of dimension, we are, and whether a human life could exist as a facet of a longer, layered multi-dimensional experience.

Peter Stichbury
art brussels 50


ART BRUSSELS 19-22 APRIL 2018

GALLERY BATON

Bin Woo Hyuk  
Chung Chi Yung
David O'Kane
Germaine Kruip   
Koen van den Broek
Koh San Keum
Peter Stichbury
Rosa Loy
Suzanne Song
Stef Driesen

BOOTH B40

Tour & Taxis, Avenue du Port 86c 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Lynda Jones, 1979, 2017Oil on linen50 x 60 cm

Lynda Jones, 1979, 2017
Oil on linen
50 x 60 cm


 


 

 

 

 

 

Peter Stichbury

HIGH STRANGENESS
PETER STICHBURY
GALLERY BATON
SEOUL

OCTOBER 27, 2017 - NOVEMBER 30, 2017

'Hella Hammid remote viewing an elephant skeleton in a museum, 1983', 2017Oil on linen50 x 60 cm PETER STICHBURY - HIGH STRANGENESS“We have seen UFOs as classical spaceships for a long time, in accordance with science fiction in the forties and fift…

'Hella Hammid remote viewing an elephant skeleton in a museum, 1983', 2017
Oil on linen
50 x 60 cm
 

PETER STICHBURY - HIGH STRANGENESS

“We have seen UFOs as classical spaceships for a long time, in accordance with science fiction in the forties and fifties…. psychic effects reported by witnesses are considered either as evidence of mental weakness or as electromagnetic side effects. Yet, as documentation improves we find out that the physical aspects of the phenomenon are as negotiable as its psychic effects.” -Jacques Vallée, astrophysicist, computer scientist and UFO/UAP researcher

Gallery Baton is delighted to announce ‘High Strangeness’, a solo exhibition by Peter Stichbury (b. 1969), from 27th October to 30th November in Apgujeong, Seoul. Stichbury has built a loyal audience in the US and Oceania, his portraits the visual accomplice to his elaborate, exhaustively researched case studies. This exhibition represents the first opportunity for the Asian and Korean audience to discover his work.  

Stichbury has produced a series of works whose leitmotif is the psychological and physiological impact sustained by witnesses of mysterious aerial activity - known as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). He questions the validity of most reports, deeming them contaminated by subjective interpretation, Government disinformation, or erroneous speculation. Many are deliberate hoaxes. However a small proportion of cases which, while lacking tangible evidence, are unexplainable by conventional scientific methods, raise immeasurable speculation and mystery due to their ambiguous identity. It is these cases which spearhead his inquiry into this enigmatic phenomenon.

For Stichbury the concept of the UAP is synonymous with literary conventions where a central incident significantly influences both the plot and the life paths of characters. In a novel the core event is the centrum from which the Butterfly Effect emanates, influencing relations between characters, and between character and plot, even though they may appear unrelated at first glance. Interpreted through this lens, the UAP plays a parallel role in Stichbury’s practice - from the core UAP event ripple outwards complex psychological effects within witnesses. They often report subsequent absurd ‘high strange’ parapsychological, physical and psychic experiences. These can include missing time, temporary paralysis, disorientation, synchronicities, unexplained sunburn, and Klieg conjunctivitis.

Since 2014 Stichbury has been grappling with this subject, his fascination sparked by an experience in childhood of an object he could not identify moving slowly across the midday sky above him. Two previous museum shows on the subject, at La Casa Encendida, Spain in 2015, and Nevada Museum of Art in 2016 – 2017, have firmly established UAP as the current thematic focus of his practice.

Rigorously researching media material, declassified Government documents from several nations, and video footage, the artist pays particular attention to photographic data, academic and Government reports, and video footage of individuals in their 20s and early 30s. He perceives a purity in this age group which he believes renders them a relatively uncontaminated vessel for the strange occurrences they embody.

The fragile beauty of Stichbury’s figures contrasts with their discomforting, haunted gaze. This awkward juxtaposition points to a rupture in their accepted assumptions of what is real, as a result of their UAP encounter – a loss of belief in the consensus reality decided upon by humankind. His employment of exaggerated realism increases this impression of unreality and reveals further the internal disturbance of the characters.

The combination of Stichbury’s perceptive inquiry, exceptional painting skill and personal childhood experience, which although faint, still remains in his memory, have produced a series which functions as a personal archive delivered via a complex theme and compelling aesthetic. This exhibition will attempt to share the artist’s journey and also offer viewers the opportunity to explore the UAP witness cases Stichbury has found so engrossing.

Born in New Zealand, Peter Stichbury graduated from University of Auckland in 1997. He won the prestigious New Zealand art prize the Wallace Art Award in the same year. He has been presenting his work in leading international art institutions since, including Museum of New Zealand, Nevada Museum of Art, USA, La Casa Encendida, Spain, and Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand. Reviews of his work are published in several major art journals including Artforum and Modern Painters.

Gallery Baton, Seoul 

Peter Stichbury
AB-logo-home.png

GALLERY BATON
ART BRUSSELS

21 -23 APRIL 2017

KOEN VAN DEN BROEK
Koh San Kuem
PETER STICHBURY
MAX FRISINGER
Bae Yoon Hwan
Suzanne Song
Je Yeo Ran
OH YOU KYEONG
Chung Chi Yung
Yunchul Kim

 

 

Peter Stichbury

NEVADA MUSEUM OF ART
PETER STICHBURY:
ANATOMY OF A PHENOMENON

November 5, 2016 - May 28, 2017    
Feature Gallery North

New Zealand artist Peter Stichbury is fascinated by society’s ongoing obsession with UFO phenomena. He paints historical UFO sightings, as well as portraits of the people who purportedly saw them. With penetrating, but perplexing gazes, Stichbury’s subjects are caught in an alternate reality—forever changed by their sighting experience, but also influenced by the myths, disinformation, and conspiracy theories society imparts on such experiences.

Curator: JoAnne Northrup

 Mona Stafford, 1976, 2014                                               

 Mona Stafford, 1976, 2014                                               

ARE THEY OUT THERE?

Saturday February 04, 2017
2:00 PM  –  3:00 PM
Senior Astronomer and SETI researcher Dr. Seth Shostak bets that we will find extraterrestrial life in the next twenty-four years. Exploring the themes in Peter Stichbury’s Anatomy of a Phenomenon, Dr. Shostak will discuss society’s ongoing obsession with UFO phenomena, explain why new technologies and the laws of probability make the breakthrough likely and predict how the discovery of civilizations far more advanced than ours might affect us here on Earth.

Register here

Peter Stichbury
HUMAN CONDITIONCurated by John WolfThe Hospital2231 S Western Ave, Los AngelesOpening Reception: October 1, 2016October 1 – November 30, 2016www.humanconditionexhibition.comDaniel Arsham, Louise Bonnet, Polly Borland, Delia Brown, Greg Colson, Zoe C…

HUMAN CONDITION
Curated by John Wolf
The Hospital
2231 S Western Ave, Los Angeles
Opening Reception: October 1, 2016
October 1 – November 30, 2016

www.humanconditionexhibition.com

Daniel Arsham, Louise Bonnet, Polly Borland, Delia Brown, Greg Colson, Zoe Crosher, Gregory Crewdson, Mira Dancy, Marlene Dumas, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Danny Fox, Nicole Eisenmann, Derek Fordjour, Louisa Gagliardi, Brendan Getz, Laurent Grasso, Heidi Hahn, Marc Horowitz, Ridley Howard, Leonhard Hurlmeier, Joshua Jefferson, Chantal Joffe, Jordan Kasey, Hoda Kashiha, Friedrich Kunath, Kelly Lamb, Tala Madani, Robert Mapplethorpe, Max Maslansky, Tony Matelli, Simon Mathers, John Millei, Marilyn Minter, Alice Neel, Laurie Nye, Jennifer Packer, Vernon Price, Tal R, Yves Scherer, Alexander Ruthner, Peter Stichbury, Claire Tabouret, Johan Tahon, Mateo Tannatt, Kenneth Tam, Henry Taylor, Ed Templeton, Mark Verabioff, Jessica Williams, Nicole Wittenberg, Bradley Wood

 

Human Condition is comprised of emerging and established artists from Los Angeles, New York, and Europe within an unusual context – an abandoned hospital (previously the LA Metropolitan Medical Center) in the bourgeoning West Adams district on the border of South Los Angeles. Home to many working artists, this exhibition, curated by John Wolf, strives to bring attention back to this culturally and historically rich area of Los Angeles. Once considered Los Angeles’ affluent neighborhood at the turn of the 20th century, its decay over the years due to the development of the 10 freeway, Hancock Park, Hollywood, and Beverly Hills, has recently made an upward turn with an increasing interest in redeveloping the area and a commitment to supporting the local art scene. 

Human Condition will bring awareness to an underrepresented arts district on the brink of change. Using the community as a backdrop, the spaces functional history serves as the thread that binds the transient force of the human condition on the physical plane in this otherwise under-served area.

Human Condition invites artists to explore emotional responses to the physical and psychological experience of an individual in its lifespan. Themes of joy, pain, trauma, and elation are all experienced within the same shell, similar to the exhibition space itself. The reaction to these emotional responses by viewers weaves through the narrative.Working within the context of a hospital is both an architectural investigation and rediscovery of the abundant resources left in this fertile neighborhood. Similar to the human form, both have the opportunity for redevelopment and change.

The works chosen for Human Condition will be on display in various settings within the hospital.  Among the surgical rooms, maternity wards, psychiatric floor, cafeteria and foyer, artists will have the opportunity to work with the existing architecture, hospital furniture and the random remains of what has been left at the site. The works will range from sculpture, drawings, paintings, performance, and select immersive installations that draw inspiration from what once was enabling the viewer to transcend and draw a subjective narrative from the unsettling and dilapidated surroundings. The Human Condition is a unique opportunity for both artists and audiences to experience artwork outside of the confines of a white box and in a familiar yet strange platform.

Peter Stichbury

Tracy Williams, Ltd. New York
People, Places, Things
7 July - 27 July 2016

Brent Holland Baker, Sue de Beer, Birgit Brenner, Richard Dupont, Nicole Eisenman, 
Judith Eisner, Greg Fadell, Anthony Gormley, Deborah Kass, Mary Reid Kelley, 
Jeff Koons, Damian Loeb, Robert Longo, Yasumasa Morimora, Matt Mullican, 
Vik Muniz, Paulina Olowska, Peter Stichbury, Kara Walker

Peter Stichbury

BAD HAIR DAY
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu
Curator: Ken Hall

A salute to the bearded, balding and bewigged. Highlighting heads and hairstyles from a span of over two-thousand years, Christchurch Art Gallery's upcoming exhibition is a playful take on everything from sideburns to split ends. Featuring more than 60 works, Bad Hair Day examines the changing expressions of hair through an eccentric compilation traversing time and trend. Gallery Director Jenny Harper says subversive humour plays an important part in many of the works, Bad Hair Day weaves an unpredictable path through a variety of works and media, from historical painting to contemporary photography and video.

Leo Bensemann, Otto Dix, William Hogarth, Anthony McKee, John Theodore Heins, Yvonne Todd
Steve Carr, George Moutard Woodward & Thomas Rowlandson, Ede & Ravenscroft London, Gavin Hurley, Claudius Brassington, Gavin Hipkins, Laurent Joseph Olivier, Marie Seymour Lucas,  Pierre Auguste Renoir, Rembrandt van Rijn, Robert Walker, Heather Straka, James Lawson Balfour, Gregor Kregar, Kennaway Henderson, Anne Noble, Peter Stichbury, Eric Gill, Elsie White, Jacques Callot, Toyohara Chikanobu, David Cook, Jason Greig, Siliga David Setoga, Rita Angus, Lucas van Leyden, Joan Dukes, Heather Busch, Liyen Chong, Patrick Pound, William Blake, Roger Boyce, Ronnie van Hout. 

4 June 2016 – 28 May 2017

Peter Stichbury

101 Works of Art : Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu

In this large, beautifully presented book, Christchurch Art Gallery showcases 101 treasures from its collection – paintings, drawings, sculpture, film and photographs that stand out in a line-up of New Zealand’s most significant collected works. Enjoy thoughtful, conversational texts by Lara Strongman, Ken Hall, Felicity Milburn, Nathan Pohio, Peter Vangioni and Jenny Harper – written to feel as if the reader is standing with the curator in front of the painting. Also includes insightful interviews with artists and curators.
Order by emailing shop@christchurchartgallery.org.nz

 

NDE, Felicity Milburn
101 Works of Art,
catalog
Christchurch Art Gallery
2015 

It’s odd when your immediate reaction to a painting is to look away and over your shoulder instead. That’s how I felt when I first encountered Peter Stichbury’s unsettling NDE. When someone fixates anxiously on a point behind you it is undeniably off-putting - a classic schoolyard ploy – and what’s more, it disrupts comfortable art viewing protocols: rather than returning, or receiving, our gaze,  the immaculate woman’s intense concentration elsewhere makes our presence seem somehow superfluous. It’s creepy intriguing and, yes, even a little insulting.

NDE made its first public appearance as a glowing, seven-meter-wide billboard on Christchurch Art Gallery’s exterior as part of our post-earthquake Outer Spaces program. Looming over Worcester Boulevard, her unnerving gaze rested squarely on the Christchurch City Council’s Civic offices, and no sooner was she installed than we began receiving expressions of alarm via our blog:

At 12:28 PM on 19/04/2013, Gus wrote: The painting is scaring people.
At 8:14 PM on 19/04/2013, Gus wrote: This is spooky! Take it down!

Mission accomplished, Stichbury may well have thought, given he’d previously admitted his hope that NDE would ‘induce an uneasy response, like witnessing a UFO’. The artist, in fact, had been managing some anxieties of his own – this was his first public artwork and also the first time he’s made a painting with the intention that it be translated into vinyl and blown up dramatically in scale. From his comments at the time, it’s clear the work received even more than his usual forensic attention to detail: 
‘It feels slightly strange knowing it will be transformed into a huge illumination. All those small hairs and tiny details I’ve been sweating over will end up as scruffy foot-long gestural brushstrokes. I should really be painting with a microscope. Actually, once it’s blown up, even the linen will look like the moon’s surface.’

Back in the Gallery, the subsequently acquired original exudes an enigmatic perfection reminiscent of Hitchcock’s icy blondes, though closer scrutiny suggests she might have more in common with the fretful, too-perfect, ‘valids’ of Gattaca, Andrew Niccol’s 1997 sci-fi classic about a eugenically designed society.  That initial, synthetic flawlessness unravels further every moment, revealing a series of subtle manipulations calculated to maximize our discomfort. First, those haunted, haunting eyes – enlarged and widened in the chilling ‘objective’ tradition of Lucian Freud, who Stichbury cites as a key influence – but also sunken, red rimmed and ringed with shadows.  And the strangely ambiguous look within them – is this a woman who is startled, afraid or merely processing some life-changing new information? Her clothing (chic trench or lab coat?) is similarly inconclusive. Our viewpoint is so low and close we can almost see her pupils dilate, and Stichbury’s fascination with testimonies of near death experience, documented and analyzed in countless internet forums. Across age, gender and religion, several core motifs recur: a sensation of bodily detachment, a feeling of serenity and the presence of a light, traveled through or toward. Have we stumbled across someone on the cusp of the hereafter? Her implied, inaudible gasp seems to support it. Whatever she has seen or experienced, it has, at least temporarily, removed her from our sphere into another – leaving us uncomfortably close, but worlds apart.

Peter Stichbury


        UNTITLED, Miami Beach 2015

        TRACY WILLIAMS Ltd, New York : Booth A01
        Judy Ledgerwood
        Jeanne Silverthorne
        Peter Stichbury
        Simryn Gill

 

Peter Stichbury

KIAF 2015 / Art Seoul

GALLERY BATON : Booth B-127

Koen van den Broek
Rosa Loy
Dirk Braeckman
Peter Stichbury
San Keum KOH
Sang Gyun KIM
David O’Kane
Woo Hyuk BIN
Suk One YOON
Chi Yung CHUNG
Paolo Ventura
Max Frisinger
Andreas Gefeller
Stef Driesen
Axel Geis

 

Peter Stichbury

La exposición ARSTRONOMY. Incursiones en el cosmos, comisariada por Danielle Tilkin, nos sumerge en el complejo mundo del cosmos a través de su reflejo en el arte contemporáneo. Los viajes espaciales, lo astral, lo cósmico, lo científico y lo ufológico son temas presentes en el arte del siglo XX que han sido fuente fundamental de inspiración para muchos creadores y que se ven materializados en esta exposición.

ARSTRONOMY reflexiona sobre la unión entre la ciencia, la imaginación, la tecnología y el arte mediante la obra de más de treinta artistas: Alfonso Borragán, Pamela Breda, Michael Buthe, Robert Dimatteo, EVRU, Laurent Grasso, Greatest Hits, Keith Haring, Susan Hiller, Mike Kelley, William Kentridge, Yves Klein, Július Koller, Gyula Kosice, Paul Laffoley, Robert Llimós, Abu Bakarr Mansaray, Tony Oursler, Trevor Paglen, Panamarenko, Sigmar Polke, Joan Rabascall, Rotraut, Thomas Ruff, Nicolas Schoffer, Bob Smith, Peter Stichbury, Thomas Struth, Ionel Talpazan, Mark Tansey, Paul van Hoeydonck, Angelo Vermeulen, Anton Vidokle, William Adjété Wilson y Michael Zansky.

Este catálogo digital incluye, además del texto de la comisaria, aportaciones de destacados especialistas, como Chris Aubeck, fundador del colectivo de investigación histórica Magonia Exchange, y el pensador y escritor alemán Boris Groys.  La Casa Encendida, 2015

Authors: Danielle Tilkin , Borys Groys and Chris Aubeck

Download free catalog / Descárgate gratis el catálogo.

Peter Stichbury

ARSTRONOMY. Incursions into the cosmos. La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain.  14 May - 30 Aug 2015

Paul van Hoeydonck, Joan Rabascall, Yves Klein, Rotraut, Julius Koller, Sigmar Polke, Panamarenko, Paul Laffoley, Mark Tansey, E.M.S. Evrugo mental state, Robert Llimós, Michael Zansky, Bob Smith, Susan Hiller, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, William Kentridge, Ionel Talpazan, Keith Haring, Tony Oursler, Mike Kelley, Abu Bakarr Mansaray, Peter Stichbury, Laurent Grasso, Pamela Breda, Alfonso Borragán, Greatest Hits, Trevor Paglen, William Adjété Wilson, Anton Vidokle, Angelo Vermeulen, Michael Buthe, Nicholas Schöffer, Gyula Kosice, Robert Dimatteo.  

Curated by Danielle Tilkin 

-----------------------------------

La exposición ARSTRONOMY aborda el cosmos desde distintos aspectos –lo astral, lo espacial, lo científico y lo ufológico– y reflexiona sobre el impacto que la investigación científica, los viajes espaciales y la ciencia ficción han tenido en el arte contemporáneo a través de una selección de obras de más de veinte artistas nacionales e internacionales. 

Los viajes espaciales, la ciencia ficción o la llegada del hombre a la Luna son temas presentes en el arte del siglo XX y, en muchos casos, han significado una fuente fundamental de inspiración, confrontación, reflexión y provocación. Esta connivencia entre ciencia e imaginación en la que la tecnología se da la mano con la ficción es lo que mejor define el concepto de la exposición ARSTRONOMY.

La muestra reúne a artistas nacionales e internacionales de distintas generaciones que, desde la década de 1950, han reflexionado, investigado o interpretado innumerables fenómenos en torno a lo astral, lo cósmico o lo científico para producir obras en las que la imaginación, la fantasía y la creatividad incursionan en el espacio, la política, la ciencia y la tecnología.

Comisariada por Danielle Tilkin, ARSTRONOMY aborda el cosmos desde distintos aspectos a través de fotografías, vídeos, pinturas y esculturas de varias generaciones de creadores como Paul van Hoeydonck, Joan Rabascall, Yves Klein, Rotraut, Julius Koller, Sigmar Polke, Panamarenko, Paul Laffoley, Mark Tansey, E.M.S. Evrugo mental state, Robert Llimós, Michael Zansky, Bob Smith, Susan Hiller, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, William Kentridge, Ionel Talpazan, Keith Haring, Tony Oursler, Mike Kelley, Abu Bakarr Mansaray, Peter Stichbury, Laurent Grasso, Pamela Breda, Alfonso Borragán, Greatest Hits, Trevor Paglen, William Adjété Wilson, Anton Vidokle, Angelo Vermeulen, Michael Buthe, Nicholas Schöffer, Gyula Kosice y Robert Dimatteo.

En paralelo se programarán distintas actividades en torno a la muestra.

Peter Stichbury