Still Here New Paintings by Michael Cubey

Studio One Gallery

November 22nd to December 16th 2012

Like This (Detaiils) Oil on board with leather belt and nails 1600 x 420 mm

“The belt was added right at the end…it just changed the whole feel completely”

Still Here, New Paintings by Michael Cubey Painting is still here, despite it having been killed off many times since the 1840s. It may indeed be undead, in which case you would really need to make sure you had the right bullets to finish the job, or cut off the head. But painting should acknowledge that while it is in a fitter state of health than the Art Men would like, it may well be irrelevant. And that can be a glorious and quite liberating place to be. Michael Cubey's recent paintings pull elements from his own paintings from the past 25 years, and those of other painters that continue to inspire and challenge him, influences from his formative years in New Zealand alongside other painterly references. He takes the ultimately futile, comical and irrelevant pursuit of painting seriously. He is in it for the long game, and would readily acknowledge that he is still finding his own language and voice and is continuing to work through some strong influences. Cubey's early work was aggressively three dimensional, engaging in a love of material, shape and colour, ripped and shaped canvases that projected off the wall. This led into a painterly 'expressionist formalism', using grids and stripes to hang color and paint together. He has gradually abandoned this abstract territory, seeing it as a dead end road, and has increasingly populated his shallow painted worlds with what are often dark shadowy figures, and painted 'signs',

most notably the recurring question mark motif. This is more recently combined with grotesque, comical elements, the laughing grinning, vomiting heads. "Its a fairly ridiculous activity to be engaged in, painting. All you can do is aim high and make the very best paintings that you can…within your own terms. To quote David Thomas*: "Embrace, my brothers, the utter futility of ambition and desire. Your only reward is a genuine shot at being the best. The caveat is that no one but your brothers will ever know it. That's the deal we agreed to." (*he was talking about music and living in Cleveland in the 1970s, but it’s all part of the same game) The question marks started off as a sign of my uncertainty venturing into figurative territory (‘What do you paint?’), and a riposte to the ridiculousness of artists who try and communicate or worse 'self express' through their art. The laughing heads, well they are just there watching and mocking me, you, all of us... ( Michael Cubey, October 2012) What has remained constant over the years in Cubey's painting is a very physical approach to painting, using objects such as paintbrushes hanging off the painting, painting on shaped supports (such as ping pong paddles or chair seats) and a strong use of colour and a very evident love of paint itself. He wants his paintings to get an immediate response, but also to be layered and complex enough to warrant time in repeated viewings. A.W Alabaster, October 2012

Painter with Burdens 1950 x 460 mm Oil on wooden door with objects. Cubey has here literally layered the painting with the ‘tools of the trade’, attaching brushes, palettes, paint tubes and paint scrapers. Just as the actual passages of thick paint hide but also hint at previous layers, so do the attached brushes and canvases. Some of the appendages have become limbs and form part of the landscape around the grinning painter, who is tailed by a maniacally grinning shadow figure.

How Dark My Shadow’s Grown 2700 x 1700 mm Oil on board, canvas. “In NZ there has always been this strand of very dour, colourless painting, all browns and greys and blacks. Very Serious. I wanted to make a brown and black painting to tackle that aspect which I’d always hated. Colour crept in so ultimately it’s a failure on those terms. The painting just grew outwards as it went. The title is from a bluegrass Bad Livers song, don’t read too much into it…”

All enquiries to Michael Cubey: michael@cubey.org 07932 744 709 www.paintmain.org 1964: Born Wellington, NZ 1983-85,1988: Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University, NZ

Michael's work is held in collections in NZ, Australia, and U.K Solo Exhibitions 1981 Photoforum Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1986 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 1988 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 1990 Delia Grace Galleries, Wellington, NZ 1992 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1993 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1993 Islington Arts Factory, London, UK 1994 Beatty Gallery, Sydney, Australia 1995 Beatty Gallery, Sydney, Australia 1995 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1997 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1997 Cable St Gallery, London, UK 1998 Brian Queenin Gallery, Wellington, NZ 2000 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2002 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2004 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2006 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2008 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2011 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2012 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ

Group Exhibitions 1980-1982 Photoforum Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1985 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 1986 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 1987 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 1988 Goodman Suter Biennale, Nelson, NZ 1989 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1991 South Bank Picture Show, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK 1992 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1992 Art For Sale, London, UK 1992 Beardsmore Gallery, London 1993 Beardsmore Gallery, London 1993 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1993 X.O Gallery, London, UK 1994 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1994 Beatty Gallery, Sydney, Australia 1994 Wellington City Art Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1994 Beardsmore Gallery, London 1995 ART '95, London, UK 1995 London Royal Overseas League, London 1995 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1996 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1997 Brooker Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1997 Cable Street Gallery, London, UK 1999 Upstairs at the Clerk's House, London 1999 Idiom Gallery, Wellington, NZ 1999 Cable Street Gallery, London, UK 2000 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2002 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2003 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2004 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2007 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ 2011 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, NZ

Careering, Oil on canvas, 1680 x 1210 mm Cubey alternates between using objects and shaped supports for his paintings and more traditional ‘ straight’ canvas works, often working on both in the studio concurrently. ‘Careering’ could be read as a comment on the mechanics of the artworld, and art production, the clichés of the ‘starving artist’ and ‘suffering for art’ both mocked here.

Left to right: Envoy, Oil on board, 1140 x 210 mm Voutier’s prize, Oil on board, 1140 x 240 mm Sentinel, Oil on board, 801 x 200 mm

Oily Night Oil on canvas, 1220 x 1007 mm This was the first larger painting I did with the grinning teeth faces. I really wasn’t sure about for a long time and put it away. Its been recently heavily reworked and opened up, but the essential feeling was there from the start. There is a natural tendency to distrust new departures in your own work at first.

Descent Oil on canvas, 750 x 1520 mm

The Paintman Michael Cubey’s recent paintings revolve around the adventures of ‘The Paintman’. This name may refer to the figures that have appeared more regularly in Cubey’s art over the last few years. These are literally men made out of thick layers of multi-coloured paint. The name may refer to Cubey himself, toiling away in his studio. For over 20 years, Cubey has pushed and tested the possibilities of a painterly practice. Cubey has continually sought ways of energising an essentially expressionist mode of painting with new forms, associations and meanings. This underpins the restlessness and energy that animates his work. Green River characteristically hovers between established formats and boundaries. It sways between the abstract and the figurative, the beautiful and the ugly, the controlled and the uncontrolled. Green River teases the viewer with a hint of figurative content. But this is submerged under a more overt concern with materiality and

the painting process – what the work is made from and how it is constructed. Attention is drawn to thickly applied layers of paint and glazing that build up a lustrous surface, pulsating with energy and life. Its strong tactile qualities appeal as much to the sense of touch as to the eyes. Cubey sometimes extends this interest in materiality by painting on found objects.

(Green River, 2006 (not in show)) Pieces of wood, glass, and even paint tubes and brushes have all

featured in his art. These paint-drenched objects open up a whole new set of textural and formal variations, while providing the opportunity to break away from the limitations imposed by a flat surface. The use of high-keyed colour is at the core of Cubey’s art. A lurid day-glo green dominates this painting, supported by other vibrant colours – bright oranges to deep mauves – from the ‘toxic’ end of the spectrum. Colour is freed from the demands of naturalistic representation; it’s not there to describe what and how we see. Cubey also avoids conventionally tasteful colour combinations. Freed from these demands and conventions, colour takes on a life of its own. It provides both a physical presence and even a narrative impulse. This exuberant use of colour connects Cubey’s painting to that of Rob McLeod, his art teacher at Wellington High School in the mid-1980s. Both painters have taken a similar winding path through and around expressive painterly approaches and formats. Cubey and McLeod both wield bright colour in opposition to what they see as an often timid and anaemic tradition of painting in New Zealand. This painting was exhibited in 2006 at Bowen Galleries, Wellington. The exhibition’s title Stop Thinking About It stresses the importance of a physical response to art, rather than a purely intellectual one. The art of ‘The Paintman’ aspires to a state of sensuous confusion, refusing to offer any secrets or answers. The artist and the viewer are meant to lose themselves in the colours, forms and textures. Green River suggests that an over- intellectualised approach to making or viewing art, represented in the painting by the hovering question marks, can easily become a hook on which to catch or hang yourself. Aaron Lister, writing about the painting ‘Green River,’ from “The Real Art RoadShow’ Big Book of Essays, ©2012

Swamp, oil on canvas on board, 1240 x 800 mm ( This is a slightly earlier version than appears in the exhibition, photo taken in studio.)

Caligari’s Mirror, oil on canvas 300 x 400 mm

Michael would like to thank Mark Nader and Charlie Day of Collective Studios for all their support and assistance in making this exhibition happen, CatoMusic for their support of Studio One Gallery and ACAVA for supporting Collective Studios.

Phluke, oil on canvas, 1520 x 1200 mm