Cliff McPherson
Cliff trained under the expressionist painter Rudi Gopas at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts (Ilam), graduating in 1968. He taught secondary school art in Whangarei and several Auckland schools.
Cliff opened an art gallery in Ponsonby in 1994, The Drawings Gallery which specialised in drawings and other works on paper. He initiated the first annual 100x100x100 small works exhibition which became a very well-known and a popular event amongst artists and art lovers and has since been widely copied and imitated.
The McPherson Gallery in Vulcan Lane, Auckland was started by Cliff in 1999 and ran till 2008.
Prior to his 2020 exhibition at Mangawhai Artists Gallery, Cliff had been making 2D constructions using found materials assembled on strips of plywood offcuts, which echoed the formal striped paintings he made some years before. The inspiration for these constructions, or hard collages came from the demolition of an old barn – a large tin tent, on his property. These materials, corrugated iron, hinges, gudgeons etc and other interesting bits Cliff had kept for their future potential, were added to with contributions from farmer and builder friends.
Therefore the making of the more traditional cut paper collages in his Mangawhai exhibition does not seem to be surprising to him as first thought. They also employ the use of found materials in this case screen shots from TV1, comics and old medical illustrations supplemented with additional material from books bought on Trade Me.
The traditional form of collage may seem clunky in the age of photoshop but the physical nature of one surface overlapping another and the random colour connections result in works that have a painterly rather than a twice removed presence.
Cliff opened an art gallery in Ponsonby in 1994, The Drawings Gallery which specialised in drawings and other works on paper. He initiated the first annual 100x100x100 small works exhibition which became a very well-known and a popular event amongst artists and art lovers and has since been widely copied and imitated.
The McPherson Gallery in Vulcan Lane, Auckland was started by Cliff in 1999 and ran till 2008.
Prior to his 2020 exhibition at Mangawhai Artists Gallery, Cliff had been making 2D constructions using found materials assembled on strips of plywood offcuts, which echoed the formal striped paintings he made some years before. The inspiration for these constructions, or hard collages came from the demolition of an old barn – a large tin tent, on his property. These materials, corrugated iron, hinges, gudgeons etc and other interesting bits Cliff had kept for their future potential, were added to with contributions from farmer and builder friends.
Therefore the making of the more traditional cut paper collages in his Mangawhai exhibition does not seem to be surprising to him as first thought. They also employ the use of found materials in this case screen shots from TV1, comics and old medical illustrations supplemented with additional material from books bought on Trade Me.
The traditional form of collage may seem clunky in the age of photoshop but the physical nature of one surface overlapping another and the random colour connections result in works that have a painterly rather than a twice removed presence.
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Cliff's solo exhibitions include:
Group exhibitions include
Cliff can be contacted by email at [email protected] Right: One of Cliff's collage works for his exhibition '2020 Musings' held at Mangawhai Artists Gallery in November 2020 |
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Recent works
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Covid collages
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Past work
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