John R. P. Hodgson
2018 Scroll down for images
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John Hodgson
"Waikato 1863: Waste Land", 2018
Oil on canvas on board
800x800mm NZD 4,500
2018 Scroll down for images

John Hodgson
"Waikato 1863: Waste Land", 2018
Oil on canvas on board
800x800mm NZD 4,500
This project deploys Lyotardian minor narratives as possible antidotes
to the received Truths of popular wisdom, partisan belief and majority
prejudice. My minor narratives are the recorded but lost-to-sight or dis-remembered,
therefore out-sided, stories of past reportage.
This happened. That was done. These were here. They are often
inconvenient truths. There is no overt
taking of sides. The intent is not to articulate but merely to hint, to
engender curiosity, to engage attention, generate enquiry, and encourage
discourse. There is conversation with
previously painted views of a developing New Zealand. In each generation the
frame shifts, issues develop, subside, gain new twists and turns. The land
remains but it is never the same, seen through different frames.
The project is lane for memory, a mnemonic, a reference, a reminder. Eye candies, visual jewels, decorative accents, crafted artefacts. A teller of stories, bold statements, hidden messages, clever jokes, erudite pronouncements, desperate appeals. Is mine a refined polemic, or a savage expose? A whimsy or a critical history? A painting may serve these ends and more. In New Zealand, painting has sought to articulate perceptions of the land, of arrival, identity, place and origin, to point forwards, to expose concern, to establish community. The project resides somewhere within these traditions.
Titles have a specific function. As Mike Kelley puts it: “Not just any interpretation is good, there’s a certain range of interpretations that are allowed…you are responsible for your interpretation, but you are not totally free.” These titles are pointers to a discoverable and researchable situation or event, as with Sidney Nolan’s Kelly Gang cycle of paintings. Significance and judgment are left open to the viewer’s priorities. In the end, for some, these may only be paintings.
The project is lane for memory, a mnemonic, a reference, a reminder. Eye candies, visual jewels, decorative accents, crafted artefacts. A teller of stories, bold statements, hidden messages, clever jokes, erudite pronouncements, desperate appeals. Is mine a refined polemic, or a savage expose? A whimsy or a critical history? A painting may serve these ends and more. In New Zealand, painting has sought to articulate perceptions of the land, of arrival, identity, place and origin, to point forwards, to expose concern, to establish community. The project resides somewhere within these traditions.
Titles have a specific function. As Mike Kelley puts it: “Not just any interpretation is good, there’s a certain range of interpretations that are allowed…you are responsible for your interpretation, but you are not totally free.” These titles are pointers to a discoverable and researchable situation or event, as with Sidney Nolan’s Kelly Gang cycle of paintings. Significance and judgment are left open to the viewer’s priorities. In the end, for some, these may only be paintings.

John Hodgson
"Waikato 1863: Promised Lands, I, II & III", 2018
Oil on canvas on board
600x1800mm ( 3 panels) NZD 4,950

John Hodgson
"Waikato 1863: 'Arrival', 'Great Road South', 'From Queen's Redoubt', 'Near Ōtāwhao' ", 2018
Oil on canvas on board
600x2400mm (4 panels) NZD 6,600

John Hodgson
"Taranaki 1867: At the Inn at Manutahi", 2018
Oil & charcoal on linen on board
600x600mm Collection of the Artist

John Hodgson
"Waikato 1863: Constructed Lands", 2018
Oil & charcoal on canvas on board,
600x600mm NZD 1,850

John Hodgson
"Taranaki 1867: Inia on the run", 2018
Oil & charcoal on canvas on board
500x500mm, NZD 1,250

John Hodgson
"Taranaki 1867: The untimely demise of John Daniel Roby", 2018
Oil on canvas on board,
600x600mm NZD 1,850

John Hodgson
"Taranaki 1867: Looking for Inia", 2018
Oil on canvas on board
500x500mm NZD 1,250