Paintings

Malcolm Warr

Early influences go back to Auckland in the fifties, the time of my youth. It is easy to forget how crimped New Zealand was then. The post war glow did not generally extend to the arts. Going to Elam meant being in a place where art was okay, a haven. There was the argument too that if you did ?have something to say? not even art school could knock it out of you. I?m still not sure of that.

At that time more emphasis was being given to the non practical aspects of art as the school gravitated towards the degree structure of the University. Peter Tomory was teaching what seemed to us the ?irrelevant? subject of art history. One thing Peter Tomory said stuck though. You could now, in 1959, stay and work in New Zealand. The need to go overseas to validate your career was obsolete. This comment lead me to believe it was possible to be a New Zealand painter in New Zealand. The idea of a national identity left over from an earlier era seemed still in the air, I think it still is, although now readjusted to suit the political correctness of the day.

At this time the Auckland Gallery hosted summer schools. I met Colin McCahon at one of these schools and in my own work still try to use his art principles such as clarity and directness in expression, along with a good deal of other things he taught.

While McCahon was an influence in the sense of what it means to be an artist and what I learned about the language of art from him, there have been many others. My tutors at art school, such as John Weeks, Garth Tapper, Lois White, Michael Nicholson, Robert Ellis and Kes Hos come immediately to mind. My contemporaries like Michael Smither and Don Binney and then history which did occur as relevant to me in the end. ?Creative steps? interest me. Whenever I go to a history museum I always look for that first moment, say, for example, when the light on the water emerged in a Monet painting. From that moment everything that precedes it looks dull.

Some years later when I had an exhibition in town t Alan Swinton?s, Garth Tapper, Colin MacCahon and myself were walking along the road towards the inevitable pub and the conversation turned to what we really would like to do. Colin stopped us in our tracks by saying he would like to make one good painting. We had a drink on that one! Right now I can?t think of a better objective.

For a long time after art school I pottered about and also spent a number of years teaching. I was not suited to teaching, so in 1975 set out to make a living from practicing art which I am still doing. I was very successful as a printmaker and during the early eighties annually turned over a substantial income and ended up employing numerous people. A feat which might have been better appreciated today in our newfound search for the knowledge and culture based economy. Even as late as the eighties artistic success was not to be measured in dollars and cents.

Light, pattern and colour interest me. I paint to make a resonance which people can respond to and wish to live with.

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