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Ross Gray Artist

Ross Gray is a long-established Christchurch New Zealand artist, teacher and heritage activist.

This site contains a wide selection from 5 decades of his artistic practice.

Themes have changed over the years, with a strong city heritage focus since 1995.

Means have developed via a modernist aesthetic: paint, colour, pictorial space, composition, abstraction. The grid is never far away.

Digitisation has opened up new fields of exploration, including animation.

Current work deals with presence and absence, memory, nostalgia, identity – spotlit in the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes.

Works marked “Available” – please enquire on the Contact page.

Below are three works from each of the five decades of practice from the 1970’s-2010’s.

71

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Now And Then
1971, acrylic / hardboard, 960mm x 910mm.
Collection Auckland City Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki.
Purchased from Young Contemporaries Exhibition 1971.
Greek ruins as a basis for paint/colour exploration.
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74

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Farmyard Follies
1974, acrylic / hardboard, 1100mm x 880mm.
Collection the artist.
First exhibited Ross Gray CSA Gallery, Christchurch, 1974.
Exploring the grid and free, fanciful form based on table-top observation, via fluid acrylic paint work.
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78

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Tramp
1978, acrylic / canvas, 1400mm x 915mm.
Private collection.
First exhibited Ross Gray Paintings CSA Gallery 1978.
Exploring pictorial dynamics following the experience of a first tramping expedition in Canterbury.
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84

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Landscape Old Man
1984, acrylic / canvas, 940mm x 1230mm.
Private collection.
First exhibited Three Artists, The Gallery, Akaroa.
The artist’s father in a peninsula landscape: a figurative phase with a nod to Cubism.
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86

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Body Talk 4
1986, acrylic / canvas, 1720mm x 1360mm.
Collection The Suter Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson.
Purchased from inaugural Goodman Suter Exhibition, The Suter Gallery.
From a series exploring a sense of optimism via the abstracted body.
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89

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Rattled
1989, acrylic / canvas 1310mm x 1840mm.
Private collection.
Exhibited inaugural exhibition Oedipus Rex Gallery, Auckland.
Change from optimism of Bodytalk series, reflecting city turmoil and nation-wide disquiet.
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91

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Hang On
1991, acrylic / canvas, 1600mm x 2200mm.
First exhibited in Balancing Act, Suter Gallery, Nelson 1991.
Exploring vulnerability and resistance to the massive changes engulfing the nation.
Available for purchase.
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93

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In Memoriam
1993, acrylic / canvas, 1150mm x 1150mm.
Private colllection.
Exhibited ROSS GRAY FRAYED at the EDGE 1993 CSA Gallery.
From series expressing dis-ease in wake of Rogernomics.
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96

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Calling The Shots
1996, acrylic / canvas, 850mm x 850mm.
Private collection.
First exhibited in ROSS GRAY LOOK BOTH WAYS, CoCA 1996.
Response to destruction of inner-city heritage buildings by self-serving interests
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00

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Project High Street
2000, acrylic / canvas, 1915mm x 1455mm.
First exhibited ROSS GRAY PAST: PRESENCE 2000 CoCA Mair Gallery.
Painted as response to the adaptive re-use / restoration of inner-city heritage buildings.
Available for purchase.
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08

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Memory Bank 2
2008, acrylic / modular canvases, 1320mm x 1630mm.
First exhibited ROSS GRAY MODULATION CoCA Mair Gallery 2008.
From series exploring form /space manipulation of modular blocks: including digital animation of the process.
Available for purchase.
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09

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Formwork
2009 acrylic / hardboard panels 1800mm x 1800mm.
First exhibited in ROSS GRAY RESONANCE 2009, SOFA Gallery.
Part of an installation exploring gallery space, pictorial space and urban space and memory.
Available for purchase.
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11

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MC in Mind 5
2011 acrylic/canvas 610mm x 450mm.
First exhibited ROSS GRAY REVERB CoCA Mair & North galleries 2011.
From a series remembering Manchester Courts demolished 2010.
Available for purchase.
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13

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CC in Mind 2
2013 acrylic / canvas 800mm x 800mm.
Private collection.
Exhibited ROSS GRAY DEMOLISH, Ashburton Art Gallery 2013.
From series exploring psychological effects of heritage buildings’demolition after the Canterbury earthquakes.
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16

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Power Games
2016, acrylic and aquarelle / 4 canvases, 2440mm x 1830mm.
Beginning of a series exploring power and its structure in the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes.
Available for purchase.
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