Justin Boroughs / 21 November - 16 December 2006

Justin Boroughs is one of only a small number of contemporary realist painters whose works of Auckland-based landscapes are characterised by fine draughtsmanship, meticulous technique, evocative use of light, and particularly a focus on well-known locations and landscapes around Auckland and New Zealand. His new exhibition of works at John Leech Gallery is no exception.
 
As mood, atmosphere and light are central to Boroughs' oeuvre, he seeks out locations that can be moulded to fit these criteria. Consequently, harbour and coastal scenes at Devonport, Waiheke Island, Piha, Orakei and Parnell feature in this suite of new works. Rather than being quaint tourist images, these paintings are hyper-real renditions of Boroughs' surrounds. Signs of habitation are typical - boats, houses, boatsheds - yet the people themselves are absent. Boroughs is in a sense re-ordering the world, re-presenting it to the viewer as a somewhat romanticised, even Arcadian, environment.

“People use the word romantic, but a lot say my work is semi-surrealist. These are places people go and know, but somehow I’ve done something slightly different…I don’t see much point in copying the landscape exactly as it is. You could take a photograph there and save a lot of time and trouble. But a photograph never, ever, ever gives you a true idea of the landscape.” (Artist’s statement, 1996)