justin boroughs

25 August - 19 September 2012

JustinBoroughs

Light

milford galleries queenstown9A Earl Street (03) 442 6896 [email protected]

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

1. Through the Pass with Dido (2012)

oil on board, frame: 905 x 1770 x 34 mm, panel: 878 x 1746 mm

2. Clouds and Hills, Lindis Pass, Otago (2012)


3. Mountains and Lakes, Queenstown (2012)

oil on board, panel: 310 x 920 mm

4. Clouds and Poplar Trees, Akaroa, Canterbury (2012)

oil on board, panel: 230 x 670 mm

5. Clouds and Mountains Near Lake Dunstan, Otago (2012)


6. Late Light, Lindis Pass, Otago (2012) oil on board , frame

7. Harbour Cone, Otago, at Dawn (2012), oil on board, frame: 623 x 1144 x 39 mm, panel: 612 x 1124 mm

8. Old Villa, Esplanade Rd, Mt Eden, Auckland (2011/12)


9. Boatshed, Otago Harbour (2012)


10. Boatshed and Light, Wellington Harbour (2011)


11. Dark Boatsheds, with the Kailua and the Valwyn (2012)


Justin Boroughs is a masterful painter of the angled light of morning and

afternoon. He paints its presence and marks its absence.

He constructs acutely defined moments of time into exquisitely detailed

photorealist works as well as building profound sensations that the viewer – in

the act of seeing – is actually placed there and in this way actively

participating in its reality.

He possesses a deeply attuned eye for the regionalist dialogues of differing

landscapes and buildings. His paintings resonate as much because of the

exclusions as inclusions, and in this way his work collectively establishes an

idealised rhetoric and visual language. Nothing it seems is out of place, even

when fiction.

He uses the implications and statements of human presence as pictorial

devices for the viewer’s eye to travel along and about. He contrasts this

suggestive human presence directly with the more pervasive, dominant,

sense of isolation. His works are ultimately unoccupied (whether rural or

urban) yet are redolent of our constant use, be that work or leisure, where we

live or want to go.

Boroughs palette is cool. Light is presented as soft and bright; it is placed and

defined; its pictorial role is understated but well argued and slightly yellowed.

Ultimately Boroughs paintings are an engaging mix of topographical and

architectural accuracy with a surprisingly fluid brushstroke presence (when

viewed close up). This modelling and surface rendering augments the overall

photorealist approach of his work while declaring also his technical virtuosity

to be significantly broader than first seemed.

All prices are NZD and include GST; Prices are current at the time of the exhibition

E X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S TE X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S TE X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S TE X H I B I T I O N P R I C E L I S T

1 Through the Pass with Dido (2012) 17,500

2 Clouds and Hills, Lindis Pass, Otago (2012) 15,000

3 Mountains and Lakes, Queenstown (2012) 6,500

4 Clouds and Poplar Trees, Akaroa, Canterbury (2012) 4,000

5 Clouds and Mountains Near Lake Dunstan, Otago (2012) 11,000

6 Late Night, Lindis Pass, Otago (2012) 15,000

7 Harbour Cone, Otago, at Dawn (2012) 14,000

8 Old Villa, Esplanade Rd, Mt Eden, Auckland (2011/12) 9,000

9 Boatshed, Otago Harbour (2012) 6,500

10 Boatshed and Light, Wellington Harbour (2011) 7,500

11 Dark Boatsheds, with the Kailua and the Valwyn (2012) 13,000

Justin Boroughs 2012 CV milford galleries queenstown www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

P a g e | 1

JUSTIN BOROUGHS b. 1952, lives Auckland

First Light, Te Mata Peak, Hawkes Bay (2012)

Justin Boroughs is often described as a ‘realist painter’ and does indeed paint scenes that the

viewer recognises as actual places, but his works reveal more than what he sees directly in front of

him. Individual elements – sea, sky, buildings, hills - are refined and heightened so that the finished

work reveals a landscape that has become more than the sum of its parts. Boroughs paints the

realities that we have in our mind’s eye – moments that have been captured and rendered still

and unchanging by the trickery of memory.

Using subtleties of light and shadow, Boroughs creates a remembered atmosphere and sense of a

particular place that is both timeless and instantly recognisable. The sharp freshness of early

morning light and the fading colours of dusk are frozen in an instant, the golden hues Boroughs

uses evoking nostalgia for a time and place that was. Suggested only through marks left on the

environment (houses, sheds, boats), the absence of humans amplifies the feeling of an idealised

and somewhat eerie, ‘unreal’ world.

Born in England in 1952, Justin Boroughs studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts under Gretchen

Albrecht, Don Binney and photographer John B Turner, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in

1975. As well as travelling extensively, Boroughs has worked as a photographer and art teacher,

and is currently head of the art department at Auckland Boys’ Grammar School.

Justin Boroughs 2012 CV milford galleries queenstown www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

P a g e | 2

JUSTIN BOROUGHS b. 1952, lives Auckland

EDUCATION

1975 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012 Light, milford galleries queenstown

Away to the South, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

2011 Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

2010 Auckland - Taranaki - Lake Dunstan, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

2009 Landscapes, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

2008 Recent Paintings, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

2007 Recent Paintings, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

2006 John Leech Gallery, Auckland

2004 Wellington, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

Recent Paintings, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

2002 Recent Wellington Landscapes, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

Late Light, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

2001 Land Marks, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

2000 Wellington Landscapes, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

1999 Recent Paintings, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

1998 Wellington Landscapes, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

1997 Auckland Foreshore, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

1996 Christchurch Landscapes, Dobson Bashford Gallery, Christchurch

1995 Auckland Cityscapes, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

1993 Places Remembered, Dobson Bashford Gallery, Christchurch

1992 Auckland Panoramas, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

1991 Romantic Landscapes, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2012 Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries queenstown

2011-12 The Earl Street Journal, milford galleries queenstown

2011 Between Earth & Sky, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington

2010-11 FRIEZE, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland

2009 Spring Catalogue, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland

2005 FRIEZE, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland

1993 Real Vision, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch

COLLECTIONS

Te Manawa Art Gallery, Palmerston North

Fletcher Trust Collection

Telecom NZ

Private collections in New Zealand, Australia & the United Kingdom

Otago Harbour Cone at Dawn (2012)

justin boroughs

Documents

otago harbour

lindis pass

late light

boroughs paintings

statements of human

suggestive human presence

wellington harbour

fluid brushstroke presence