Dean Buchanan - 'the Artist's Garden' Exhibition Opening

DEAN BUCHANAN - 'The Artist's Garden'

I thought this was an appropriate title for this exhibition as I live and work in a huge beautiful garden the Waitakere Ranges.

I've watched the forest regenerate in the 47 years I've lived, worked and played in Karekare.

Right outside my studio door the visiting Kereru sow the seeds of future forest giants. Forest Gecko live, breed and surprisingly shed their skins in my studio, I often find their complete papery skins on my floor. Piwakawaka fly in and out when I open my studio doors. They were the inspiration behind a series of paintings. Their constant movement I thought lent itself to an expressionistic style of work.

I never thought the weeks of rain and a cyclone would create the havoc that Cyclone Gabrielle did. Living here I have seen cyclones and rain but the combined power of the two was too much for the landscape. I worked on a series of paintings after the cyclone using predominately ochre earth tones because overnight there were huge gouges in the hillsides down to the clay.

We were basically unable to leave Karekare for several weeks as there were so many slips covering the roads and big chunks of the roads had fallen away so I spent most of my time painting. The Pohutukawa that I drove or walked under every time I went up or down the Cutting was another victim of that time. It had survived for hundreds of years and held strong during the cyclone but was deemed to be in the way. I painted a series called ‘In Memory of a Tree’ inspired by that Pohutukawa.

Everything I paint has been the result of something I have witnessed.