mike petre

22 September - 17 October 2012

Mike PetreNew Works

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

www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

1. Field Study 230 (2012)

ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on canvas, stretcher: 1302 x 1100 x 37 mm


oil on canvas, stretcher: 918 x 918 x 35 mm


oil on canvas, stretcher: 1103 x 1300 x 37 mm


ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper

frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 418 x 358 mm





ink, graphite, oil & acrylic on paper, frame: 767 x 668 x 47 mm, image: 358 x 418 mm




10. Field Study 210 (2012)



11. Field Study 211 (2012)


12. Field Study 216 (2012)



13. Field Study 217 (2012)



14. Field Study 215 (2012)


15. Field Study 220 (2012)



16. Field Study 218 (2012)



17. Field Study 219 (2012)


Mike Petre’s black and white paintings of cattle have achieved iconic status

in NZ art. He uses implication, understatement and paraphrase as

fundamental stylistic tools. In these works, the backgrounds have been

removed and the cattle beasts come to float in unspecified space. He also

achieves the rare and remarkable pictorial quality of the animals appearing

both solid and liquid at the same time. He presents volume and body mass,

the variable structure of the head and disposition with the authority of an

insider; he knows these animals completely.

There is also more than an echo in these works of the (politicised) gaze of

modern portraiture but the statements and hints of eye contact occur from

deep within the shadowed eye sockets. This direct challenge to the viewer

adds an unsettling aspect into the viewing relationship and significantly

broadens the visceral experience. These are no ordinary images of cattle –

these are beasts bred to die, a commodity farmed for our needs, and we

know this.

Petre builds in numerous allusions to farming, such as with the dripping lines

strongly suggesting carcasses hanging. He uses repetition as a device to

present the animals as objects for scrutiny – we compare one to the other

and appraise the differences.

In every black and white work the landscape exists only in our minds. In Field

Study 228 and Field Study 229 he alters the dynamic by adding a green

background and using a palette knife. This completely different technique of

building an impasto surface across the entire work unites the animals and the

landscape, and in this way presents them as completely entwined, literally as

one and the same.

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 Field Study 230 (2012) 8,500

2 Field Study 232 (2012) 10,000

3 Field Study 231 (2012) 10,000

4 Field Study 228 (2012) 6,000

5 Field Study 229 (2012) 8,500

6 Field Study 207 (2012) 3,000

7 Field Study 208 (2012) 3,000

8 Field Study 209 (2012) 3,000

9 Field Study 213 (2012) 3,000

10 Field Study 210 (2012) 3,000

11 Field Study 211 (2012) 3,000

12 Field Study 216 (2012) 3,000

13 Field Study 217 (2012) 3,000

14 Field Study 215 (2012) 3,000

15 Field Study 220 (2012) 3,000

16 Field Study 218 (2012) 3,000

17 Field Study 219 (2012) 3,000

Mike Petre 2012 CV milford galleries queenstown www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

P a g e | 1

MIKE PETRE b. 1964, lives Matakana

Field Study 193 (2011)

“My work is a personal response to memory and experiences associated with spending a large part of

my life immersed in rural environments. My paintings are not an attempt to elevate, idealise or

romanticise the rural, but rather a means of exploring the notion of what it is, and what it means to be a

‘local’, and developing a visual language to convey this. New Zealand has a rich and varied history of

landscape painting yet I feel little has been attempted within the visual arts to explore issues of localised

rural experience and landscape. Historically New Zealand landscape painting depicts ‘visiting the

landscape’ with all its implied transferral of ‘Urban Experience’, - a romanticising experience.” (1)

In the ‘field study’ series of works the animals have become the object of intense scrutiny. The

background has been removed, “with the object becoming a landscape within themselves.” With

gallery installation, the viewer is placed within the landscape and forced into “a degree of scrutiny

many would be unfamiliar (if not uncomfortable) with… the reality of raising animals for slaughter and

viewing the land for production necessitates objectification. My work is an attempt to capture this

objectification, as well as negotiate ‘identity’ within the New Zealand landscape.” (2)

The cattle paintings appear deceptively simple. “The images are actually built up through a sequence

of processes.” In the ‘Field Study’ series the oil adds “to the dripped and drawn effect of the ink to give

a sense of the wetness of living skin, a challenging immediacy. …The factual, unromantic approach to

beef farming (the images in the ‘Steer’ series being marked with crayon as for meat-cuts or production

lots) brings a confrontational edge to the vision of our landscape as picturesque or pastoral.” (3)

"When most of us look at cattle we interpret their returning gaze as gentle curiosity. Petre sees the eye

contact as more of a challenge, an awareness of their fate and a "Bring it on" belligerent bravado by

animals that inherently know they are born already defeated." (4)

Born Piopio, New Zealand 1964. Bachelor of Agriculture (Management), Massey University, Palmerston

North, 1986. Bachelor of Design, Carrington Polytechnic, 1994. Raised on a sheep and beef farm in

Piopio (King Country). Worked on farms in New Zealand before studying for an agriculture degree and

in the UK and Israel afterwards.

Following his graduation from design studies, Petre was a founder member of Sturdee studios and in

1998 of Indicator studios. He began exhibiting via the studios in 1995 and since 1997 has exhibited in

dealer galleries in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin. He has been a finalist in the three Wallace

Awards he has entered (1998, 1999 & 2001) and in 2001 was featured in episode 4 of TVNZ’s ‘The Big Art

Trip’.

1. Artist’s Statement, 2002.

2. ibid.

3. Helen Watson White, ‘Field work’, Sunday Star Times, 16 June 2002.

4. BMW Magazine, Autumn 2008.


P a g e | 2

MIKE PETRE b. 1964, lives Matakana

EDUCATION

1994 Bachelor of Design 3D, Carrington Polytechnic

1985 Bachelor of Agriculture (Management), Massey University

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012 New Works, milford galleries queenstown

2010 New Works, milford galleries queenstown

2009 New Works, milford galleries auckland

2007 New Works, McPherson Gallery, Auckland

2006 New Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2005 McPherson Gallery, Auckland

Mahurangi Gallery, Mahurangi Estate

2004 New Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2003 New Works, McPherson Gallery, Auckland

2002 Field Study, Milford Galleries Dunedin



SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2012 Significant Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin

Small Works, milford galleries queenstown

The Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries queenstown

2011 The Earl Street Journal, milford galleries queenstown

Spring Catalogue, milford galleries queenstown

The Review, milford galleries queenstown


The Earl Street Journal, milford galleries queenstown

2010 The Review, milford galleries queenstown

Spring Catalogue, milford galleries queenstown

2010 The Mahurangi Group, Matakana


2009 Dawson, Petre, Arnold – Recent Works, milford galleries queenstown

2008 The Taranaki Gate, Percy Thomson Gallery, Stratford, Taranaki

2007 The Mahurangi Group, Villa Tamahunga, Matakana

2006 The Mahurangi Group, Puhoi

A & P Show: Art Goes Country, Christchurch Art Gallery

2005 The Mahurangi Group, Mahurangi Estate, Warkworth

2004 George Perry Gallery, Tauranga

Menagerie, North Shore Community Art Centre, North Shore

From the River to the Sea, The Mahurangi Group, Puhoi

2003 Indicator Studio Group Show, Auckland

2002 McPherson Gallery Group Show, Auckland

2001 Bowen Gallery Group Show

Wallace Art Awards Finalist Touring Exhibition

Indicator Studio Group Show

2000 McPherson Gallery ‘100 x 100’ Group Show, Auckland

Indicator Studio Group Show, Auckland

1999 Wallace Art Awards Finalist

100 x 100 Group Show, Drawings Gallery, Auckland

Choice, McPherson Gallery, Auckland

1998 100 x 100 Group Show, Drawings Gallery, Auckland

Indicator, Studio Group Show

Wallace Art Awards Finalist


P a g e | 3

1997 100 x 100 Group Show, Drawings Gallery, Auckland

Sturdee Studio Group Show

1996 Sturdee Studio Group Show

1995 Sturdee Studio Group Show

AWARDS

2004 Finalist Art Waikato National Art Award



2001-2002 Finalist and Touring Show Wallace Art Awards

1998 Finalist Wallace Art Awards

1996 Finalist Wallace Art Awards

COLLECTIONS

Wallace Trust

Zealandia (Terry Stringer)

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2009 Sunday Star Times, Sunday Magazine, January 2009

2008 NZ Life and Leisure, Issue 19, 2008

BMW Magazine, Feature Article, Autumn 2008

2007 New Zealand Herald, November 2007

New Zealand Herald, September 2007

NZ Lawyer, March, 2006

2006 Otago Daily Times, March, 2006

Otago Daily Times, July 2006

2005 New Zealand Herald, August, 2005

2004 Bay of Plenty Times, November 2004

New Zealand Listener, June, 2004

Home Front, TVNZ, Channel One, July, 2004

Critic, August, 2004

2003 Canvas, July, 2003

2002 Art News NZ, Winter, 2002

The Big Art Trip, TV NZ, Episode 4, screened Sept 2001 TV1, repeated Jan 2002

Otago Daily Times, June, 2002

Sunday Star Times, June, 2002

2001 New Zealand Herald, September, 2001

2000 Sunday Star Times, October, 2000

New Zealand Herald, October, 2000

Metro, June, 2000, pp. 94-99

Field Study 120 (2009)

mike petre

Documents

field study

oil acrylic

cattle beasts

white paintings of cattle

ordinary images of cattle

white work

mmmike petres black

hints of eye contact