Paring back to essentials

By LINDA HERRICK

Most artists who truly believe in their work regret a practical aspect of their profession: selling their art - which means farewelling it, usually for ever.

But Auckland-based painter Chris Heaphy is lucky. He works in a studio in a large apartment-office space owned by a prominent businessman who's been collecting his art for years. Any time he likes, Heaphy can drift around the building looking at his large-scale paintings, enjoying (usually) what he describes as "work is like children, precious".

He also likes the fact that seeing older works is a daily reminder that in terms of style and maturity, he has moved on.

Heaphy, 39, who graduated in painting at Ilam in Christchurch in 1991, and took a masters at the RMIT in Melbourne in '98, has been much admired for his earlier narrative works which used fragments, motifs and symbols from both Maori and Pakeha worlds, indicating his mixed ancestry.

He has exhibited in solo shows since the early 90s and his work is held in all the major public galleries in New Zealand, including Te Papa and the Auckland Art Gallery. Heaphy has also been involved in important group shows like Parihaka, Painted Spaces (which toured Auckland, Melbourne and Edinburgh) and Transaction (Melbourne, Hong Kong).

But Heaphy's work these days is different. It's stripped right back, the language of the symbols muted and distilled. And he says it's coincidental that the clean-up occurred around the same time he spent a two-year residency in Paris, followed by a short stint as Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin resident in Verzy, Champagne, where they stocked the fridge every day. Nice work if you can get it - and he laughingly admits he didn't do much painting at Verzy.

Back in New Zealand since 2002 to "get married, have kids, buy a house - we're ticking the boxes", Heaphy reviews the latest chapter in his life. "I've been paring things back," he recalls. "That happened before I went to France. Being in Europe, travelling a lot, reinforced that. I was worn out with using figures, getting too busy intellectually. I almost felt like I was repeating myself."

Being in Europe allowed trips to New York, where Heaphy experienced the work of painters such as Rothko and visited the studios of "neo-geometrist" Peter Halley which "blew me away ... I was surprised at what they were saying and in such a simplistic way."

Heaphy started to make large works in dense fluorescent black and white, illuminated by black light, although these days he uses colour as well.

"It was quite a jump for me. As much as I had enjoyed making those shapes, I was trying to find clarity. It's like poetry - it's not just what you say, it's how you say it. I was starting to wonder if I had been embellishing the work or was I saying something? It was liberating. I could say the same things but in a quieter, much more direct way."

That's not to detract from his earlier work and the things that influenced him.

In the early 90s, Heaphy was deeply affected by his close friendship with Gordon Walters, the pioneer - along with Colin McCahon - of abstract modernism in New Zealand.

Although he had been aware of Walters for some years, Heaphy was too intimidated to contact him. "Then the City Gallery in Wellington was putting together an exhibition which was artists collaborating [Stop Making Sense]. He had a huge interest in Maori rock drawings and so have I, so I approached him and we got to work."

From there, the younger artist started to see the veteran two or three times a week, helping him put some of his older works - which were in some disrepair - in order.

"I only knew him for a couple of years but it was very important to me," says Heaphy. "To have such respect for someone and meet them on that level, then that drifted off quite quickly and we became mates on a profound level."

When Walters was diagnosed with cancer in 1995, "It was very tough watching him die," he says. "We talked a lot about that, he was very open about it."

The night Walters died, Heaphy, who didn't know until the next morning, "had some really vivid dreams - and I hardly ever dream".

Mourning made it hard to make art. Then he found a solution. "It seems corny but I made art about it, hit it front on."

Those works, such as the beautiful 1996 Gone to Ground, incorporate symbols marking Walters' passing: a heart, a blurred head, walking sticks ...

Those sticks indicate a passage in New Zealand history which Walters had introduced to his friend, involving the Ratana Church and its room full of prosthetics, sticks and crutches - the castoffs of the healed. Similarly, the prophet Rua Kenana's use of the club and diamond symbols to decorate the council house at Maungapohatu became recurring motifs in Heaphy's art.

Now look at the image in the photo on this page. Heaphy has pared back all right - but he hasn't discarded the vital elements of his art.

Exhibition

* What: New work, by Chris Heaphy

* Where and when: Michael Lett Gallery, 478 K Rd, July 28-August 21