Craftsmen and Melancholy

Spid Pye/ Andrew Barns-Graham

Arthaus Contemporary
228 Orakei Road, Remuera, Auckland

11 - 29 August 2021
Opening Thursday 12 Aug 5-8pm

This exhibition explores two different approaches to portraiture by two different artists. One is a photographer, and the other a painter. Pye has produced a series of self portraits as craftsman, different artisans whose stories seem steeped in history. From the industrial revolution to globalisations, erasure of any clear finishing line. We have evolved the ability to manufacture bigger, faster and cheaper. Pye asks what has been lost in the process, not the least of which is craft. Through the craft of painting, Barns-Graham has produced a similarly sombre portrayal of the future of consumerism. These portraits of beautiful women have an underlying melancholy about them. They seem just as uncertain of the future as Pye's self portraits.