Sir Grahame Charles Sydney KNZM is a New Zealand artist who specialises in realist landscapes (usually desolate vistas of Central Otago), interiors, nudes and portraits.
Read MoreSydney's egg tempera, oil or watercolour paintings and prints (etchings or lithographs) usually seek to reveal the bleak atmospheric qualities of the austere Central Otago landscape in his home country. Reproductions of his work are immensely popular. He is also a skilled writer, film-maker and photographer.
Raised in Dunedin, and having a love of drawing as child, Sydney has a BA degree in English and Geography from the University of Otago (1967-69), and worked as secondary school teacher. He was taught through private classes, in a wide range of art techniques, and after travelling through Europe, he had his first painting exhibition in 1972.
Grahame Sydney's practice is best known for its focus on the isolated and often barren hinterland's of the South Island of New Zealand.
Sydney is attracted to the flat austere treeless landscapes that have a mythic quality. These vistas are often only punctuated by the remnants of battered buildings, tombstones or abandoned cars, reflecting his interest in portraying the weathering effects of time and the luminous clear light of early morning. Sydney shares this passion for the elemental landforms of remote parts of the southern South Island with writer friends whom he often collaborates with, like Owen Marshall and Brian Turner.
Notable examples of Grahame Sydney's egg tempera landscape, portrait and nude works include: Wedderburn (1975); Slow Sign (1975); Morning in Casciano (2020); Nicholas at Six (1987); and Chevrolet (1977).
Examples of his oil painting include Dusk at the Shearer's Kitchen (2016); and Hawk, Onslow Road (2015).
An example of his watercolour and gouache work is Winter at the Shearer's Kitchen, Ida Valley (2017). While good examples of his etchings and lithographs are respectively Yellowhammer (1977), and Spaniards at Cookhouse (2000).
Sydney has had two government grants to travel to Antarctica (2003, 2006) to take photographs, painting plein air being impossible in the harsh elements. Anthologies of photographs (White Silence, 2008 for example) taken during these trips are included among the many books produced on his work.
Sydney has also made a film about a goldrush diggers' site in Cambrian Valley, near St. Bathans in Central Otago, working with film editor Phil Hurring and looking at local narratives. He has a studio there.
Sir Grahame Sydney has been the subject of many solo and group exhibitions.
Museum exhibitions in New Zealand include Grahame Sydney: Down South. Recent Paintings 2001 — 2011, Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua (2011), Grahame Sydney: Photographs of Antarctica, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu (2007), Grahame Sydney: Etchings and Lithographs, Eastland Southland Art Gallery, Gore (2005), On the Road; Thirty-Five Paintings by Grahame Sydney, Hocken Library, Dunedin (toured) (2002), The Paintings of Grahame Sydney, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch (1976), and Grahame Sydney, Moray Gallery, Dunedin (1972).
Group exhibitions in New Zealand institutions include Landscape 2017, Page Galleries, Wellington (2017), Wallpaper: Works from the Permanent Collection, Forrester Gallery, Oamaru (2011), Sinfonia Antarctica, The New Dowse, Lower Hutt (2008), and Picturing the Peninsula: Artists and Banks Peninsula, Christchurch Art Gallery (2007).
Sydney's work is held in numerous public institutions in New Zealand, including Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland.
John Hurrell | Ocula | 2021
