Line and colour as fresh as ever

A tale of mystery about the apparent disappearance of the artist, Dennis Knight Turner, arrives with the exhibition Oceanic: The Sarjeant at The Diversion Gallery in Marlborough this month.

In 2008, former National Art Gallery director Luit Bieringa asked if The Diversion would be interested in exhibiting a series of modernist watercolours by New Zealand artist Dennis Knight Turner. The works had a strong appeal and were still as fresh as when they were painted in 1992, when Turner was artist in residence at The Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui.

Mr Bieringa was given responsibility for the paintings when Turner could not be found and when the exhibition idea was raised in 2008, he confessed he had no idea where Turner was, or even if the octogenarian artist was still alive.

Recently, however, Turner was located in London and interviewed by Richard Wolfe about his life and career for Art New Zealand magazine. Mr Bieringa made contact and plans for the exhibition were made.

Its series of works are inspired by the swirls and sweeping forms of Melanesian and Oceanic motifs.

Turner was one of the first European artists to incorporate such motifs, for which he is recognised as one of New Zealand's pioneering modernists.

He was dismayed that local art in the 1940s and 1950s seemed old-fashioned in its imitation of English regionalism. Along with Theo Schoon and Gordon Walters (most famous for his Koru series), Turner was fascinated by the power and simple lines of Maori rock art and Oceanic art forms, and used these as a starting point for a new kind of distinctively Pacific modernism. He also liked the way a human feature or form could be represented in these art forms with a single line or block of colour.

In 1951, the New Zealand Herald described Turner as "providing the link between past and future that New Zealand has been needing". But he left New Zealand in 1964 to live in England, despondent at how hard it was to work here as a fulltime career artist.

In 1992 he was persuaded to return to his home town, Whanganui, for the Tylee Cottage residency and completed some watercolour paintings, often using restrained colours mimicking natural pigments.

While regarded in the 1950s as one of Auckland's most important artists, Dennis Knight Turner went in and out of public favour over the years. However, his significance in our art history is now firmly acknowledged.

Oceanic: The Sarjeant works are not reproductions of Oceanic forms but evolutions that respect the artistic quality of the original motifs that inspired him.

- The Marlborough Express

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