THIS IS AWKWARD
JOSEPH ROWNTREE
Show 2. 09.08.2022 - 31.08.2022
My Dog 1, 2021
Acrylic on board, mild steel frame
65 x 47cm
NFS
My Dog 2, 2022
Oil on board, mild steel frame
71 x 41cm
$1,800
By Torchlight We Talked, 2022
Oil on canvas, mild steel frame
93 x 62cm
$2,200
Treading Water, 2022
Acrylic, charcoal, oil on canvas, mild steel frame
162 x 102cm
$4,800
Untitled, 2022
Acrylic, oil, aerosol on board, mild steel frame
61 x 97cm
$2,400
SOLD
Ealing Montalto, 2022
Acrylic on plywood, mild steel frame
40 x 97cm
$2,200
Lean into it My Boy!, 2022
Acrylic, charcoal, oil on canvas, mild steel frame
162 x 102cm
$4,800
Joseph Rowntree is an artist in evolution. From his suburban Auckland upbringing he spent formative years labouring in Aotearoa’s rural heartland, shearing sheep and mending fences, and coming into relationship with the land and its people. While studying art at EIT he began painting faces and places on recycled colonial windows, often nailing them up in public places, bestowing the gift of reflection on ordinary people.
From here, Rowntree experimented with layering landscapes of the mind behind his subjects, exploring the complexities of the Pākehā relationship with their adopted land. Having pushed both practice and metaphor to its zenith, he departed from painting on glass, delving deep into oil painting techniques.
Rowntree’s keen eye lingers on his human subjects, less portraits than figurative paintings, taking people as metaphor for his own thoughts and feelings. He candidly captures the waifs and strays he paints on camera, caught in an attitude that expresses something that speaks to him - some universal truth, some latent emotion in their pose. Working from his own photographs, he draws out this feeling on the canvas in an increasingly raw and vulnerable way. Pared back backgrounds and a muted palette lay bare the bones of his work, an authentic documentation of who he is as an artist and a person, without artifice to hide behind. These new refined, thoughtful pieces build upon each other, mining the depths of his psyche to hold an unflinching mirror to the community and society to which he wholeheartedly belongs.
Rowntree creates a range of works across disciplines and environments from the studio to the street. He casts his net wide, inspiring dialogue between people from all walks of life, speaking to experience, memory and legacy, and stirring the human heart.
This is Awkward documents the significant progress of Joseph Rowntree’s practice. His paintings are strange and emotive, a social commentary on the confusing, atomised nature of our time. In painting people and places figuratively, he speaks to a deeper essence than mere likeness. Rather he is picking at the loose threads around the edges of the human condition, honestly expressing the truth of his existence, of his world view, with striking vulnerability. These stark new works represent an antidote to the over saturated, visually stimulating world in which we live. There is a boldness to allowing his subjects to stand alone, surrounded by naked space. His knocked back palette gives us nowhere to hide. Instead we are forced to sit with the awkward moment, to feel the raw feelings poured straight from Rowntree’s heart onto the canvas, to face the uncomfortable truths from which we might rather hide.
— By Rosheen FitzGerald