Richard McWhannell: Introducing Cowboy and Girls, Girls, Girls / 17 March 2009 - 25 April 2009

“It’s not been my practice to title exhibitions, but as the work for my upcoming exhibition has progressed it has been known to me as ‘Introducing Cowboy and Girls, Girls, Girls.’

The ‘Cowboy’ pictures started with an homage to Rembrandt van Rijn’s Self Portrait (1661) in Kenwood House, London, which I had the good fortune to see last year. It is just a great painting and my responses an adoration.

As a painter of women I have continued with some new and some returnee sitters. They are all in their way family, who have been wonderfully committed and excellent company. It continues to be a (difficult) pleasure to have people in front of me, to thrill at what light does on flesh and cloth, and to be able to laugh, snarl and all with those who see value in what the painter does. They are the other side of the ‘Cowboy’ coin, and very welcome after stretches on the Range.”

-Richard McWhannell, 2009.

The intensity of Richard McWhannell’s portraits sets him apart from the distinctive sober tradition evident in conventional New Zealand portraiture. Portraits are the artist’s speciality despite an enduring 35 year career also dedicated to figurative scenes and landscapes. Frequently described as a ‘realist’ painter, his arresting close-ups also exhibit nuances of impressionism. Visible brush-strokes display contrasting tonalities and contoured modelling enriched by creamy textures, a fleshy palette and natural light; all consistent trademarks of McWhannell’s signature style. Most intriguing is the interior psychology of the sitters so expertly captured by the artist, revealing a perceptiveness that communicates trust and familiarity thus suggesting the closeness of friendship or family.

Portraits not only offer the perfect genre to record the history, lifestyle and memories of the sitters, but of the artists as well. The feelings and mood evident through expression and tone can only be captured through the individual artist, and contradictory to where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject, portraits now (similarly like other genres of art) are a mystery of woven feelings and projections of a moment in time.

Auckland-based artist Richard McWhannell was born in 1952. He graduated with a Diploma of Fine Arts from the Ilam School of Fine Arts in Canterbury in 1972. Since then he has been exhibiting regularly throughout the country and was included in the International Biennale of Graphic Arts in Slovenia in 1989. McWhannell has fulfilled a number of important commissions in New Zealand and abroad, travelling to London in 2006 to commence two portraits of the Right Honourable Denis Marshall (Secretary General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association) and five portraits of the Right Honourable Donald Charles McKinnon (Commonwealth Secretary General). Richard McWhannell’s work is held in public and private collections throughout New Zealand.