Courtesy: the artist and Page Galleries, Wellington.

Gardens are perennial markers of time. There are the many hours spent on hands and knees tending to the soil: mulching, weeding, feeding, planting, and pruning. Then of course there is the slow transformation from bare earth to germination, the shoots of verdant green pushing up through the dirt, the anticipation of the first bud, and the eventual blossoming that marks the end of one season and the arrival of another.

Since the 1980s Karl Maughan has found himself absorbed by the earthly magic of the garden – his painting practice embedded in these potential sites of meditation, reflection, labour, evolution, and joy. Maughan carefully tends to these gardens in his studio, stepping back from the canvas with paintbrush in hand to consider the specific colour, texture, and pattern of all manner of flora, among them Delphiniums, Aster, Echinacea, Lupins, Camellia, and Rudbeckia.

Opening Event: Thursday 21 September, 5 – 7pm.

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