Julian Dashper studied at the Elam School of Art at the University of Auckland from 1978. His work from the early 1980s appropriated the painterly gestures of Abstract Expressionism but undermined the movement’s emotional ties in titles based on the artist’s favourite pop songs or places in Auckland.
Read MoreIn 1992 he exhibited his first purely conceptual works, a series of drum kits with the names of New Zealand artists, such as The Colin McCahons. Dashper later abandoned painting for a series of installations that considered the relationship between local and international arts practices, alluding to artists as rock stars and constructing drum kits with targets on them that imitated paintings by Jasper Johns, but were constructed with applied vinyl. He also commented on New Zealand’s cultural distance, developing an international practice from Auckland, negotiating a cover feature of himself in Art Forum.
Dashper is represented by works in the collections of the Auckland Art Gallery, The Chartwell Collection, Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa and many other public and private collections.
