Nigel Brown b. 1949
Works
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Nigel Brown2 Cars, 1980Acrylic on board60 x 42 cm (unframed)
64 x 46 cm (framed) -
Nigel Brown3 Nights of Passion, 2024acrylic on canvas45 x 35 cm
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Nigel BrownAh Yes Life, 1984Acrylic on board83 x 118 cm (unframed)
87 x 123 cm (framed) -
Nigel BrownBeyond Laingholm, 1985Oil on hardboard88 x 120 cm (unframed)
93 x 125 cm (framed) -
Nigel BrownColour of the Night, 2023Watercolour on paper71 x 55 cm (framed)
59.5 x 42 cm (unframed) -
Nigel BrownDogs of Instinct, 2018Acrylic on ply cut out68 x 78 cm
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Nigel BrownFuture Past, 2017Acrylic on canvas60 x 82 cm
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Nigel BrownHuia Rising, 2023Watercolour on paper59.5 x 42 cm
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Nigel BrownIris for Cosy Nook, 2010Oil on canvas76 x 51 cm
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Nigel BrownLast the Distance, 2024Acrylic on canvas80 x 60 cm (unframed)
83 x 63 cm (framed) -
Nigel BrownMaternity, 2022Acrylic on Birch plywood37.5 x 55 cm
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Nigel BrownMorepork Morepork, 2022Watercolour on paper42 x 29.5 cm
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Nigel BrownMost Important Thing, 2009Acrylic & oil on canvas56 x 119 cm
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Nigel BrownNature of Change , 2020-2021Acrylic on canvas135 x 80 cm
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Nigel BrownPatiki, 2016Acrylic on canvas80 x 59.5 cm
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Nigel BrownPipi, 2016Acrylic on linen81 x 60 cm
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Nigel BrownPlanet Balancer, 2020-2021Acrylic on canvas80 x 60 cm
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Nigel BrownPōneke Poetic (triptych), 2024Acrylic on canvas154 x 189
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Nigel BrownSea Protect, 2019Acrylic and beads on canvas134.5 x 80 cm
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Nigel BrownSee Saw: Nature Abhors a Vacuum, 2020Acrylic on canvas135.5 x 80 cm
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Nigel BrownSlings and Arrows, 2012-2022Acrylic on canvas80 x 60 cm
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Nigel BrownStrangers and Journeys, 2024Acrylic on ply cut-out96 x 66 cm
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Nigel BrownThe Hand that Rocks, 2006Acrylic on board78.5 x 59 cm
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Nigel BrownTuatara Man, 2015Acrylic on linen790 x 590 mm
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Nigel BrownWaterfall Dusky, 2010Oil on canvas74.5 x 59.5 cm
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Nigel BrownWhite Colonial White Kōtuku, 2024Acrylic & glitter on canvas80 x 60 cm (unframed)
83 x 63 cm (framed) -
Nigel BrownYour Cutting Edge, 2003Oil on linen88.5 x 58.5 cm
Biography
During 2025, Brown held a retrospective exhibition at ARTIS - all works were for sale and released directly from his studio. The exhibition of over twenty works, covered his career from 1973 through to 2024.
Over the past forty years, Brown has established a reputation as one of the most important figurative artists in New Zealand. His distinctive visual language uses recurring motifs, stylistic features and symbolic characters, which are strongly grounded in a New Zealand vernacular.
Throughout his career Brown has received numerous awards, including; the QEII Arts Council Grant (1981), Inaugural Artists to Antarctica Award (1998) and in 2004 was awarded the ONZM for services to painting and printmaking.
Brown enrolled at Elam School of Art in 1968 where he was taught by Pat Hanly, Colin McCahon, Garth Tapper, Greer Twiss and Robert Ellis. McCahon encouraged Brown to pursue his own personal vision and utilize distinct motifs in his work. Brown graduated in 1971 and began his full time artist career the following year in 1972. He cemented his reputation as an artist in 1977 with his highly acclaimed Lemon Tree series (1977).
Brown has a systematic and workmanlike approach to painting. He works from an initial concept, which is the result of reading and extensive research. Sketches, photographs and other sources are used as a visual back up to develop specifics, leading to works on paper and trial paintings. The artist works from a gesso ground on which he applies a base coat of yellow ochre. The main ideas and words of each work are then sketched in by brush, followed by the initial lines and tones, and the first of five layers or more of paint.
Brown directly and selectively employs history, literature and politics as devices in his artworks. He also uses words in his paintings, a technique that was heavily influenced by the English poet and painter William Blake. At Elam, McCahon suggested that Brown contain his text in a border or boundary, a technique he still employs today.
In addition to his painting, Brown is also a printmaker and has undertaken two significant stained glass window designs - St Mary's Catholic Church, Auckland (1991) and the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, Auckland (1998).
Brown has been represented at ARTIS Gallery since 2014.
Exhibitions
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October Selection
20 October - 4 November 2025Read more -
Nigel Brown
Last the Distance 10 - 30 June 2025Read more -
Aotearoa Art Fair 2024
17 - 22 April 2024Read more -
Aotearoa Art Fair 2023
STAND A5 2 - 5 March 2023ARTIS Gallery returned Aotearoa Art Fair on Thursday 2 - Sunday 5 March at The Cloud on Tāmaki Makaurau Queens Wharf. Located at Booth A5 the Gallery featured two distinct instalments over the course of the Fair. During the opening two days, we exhibited new works from Liam Barr, Nigel Brown, John Edgar, Fatu Feu'u, Hamish Foote, Andy Leleisi'uao, Peter Panyoczki, Ann Robinson, and Terry Stringer.Read more -
Nigel Brown
Cells of Human 23 August - 11 September 2022Long recognised as an expert on 'we Pākehā' and what makes us tick, Nigel Brown has been described as a magpie. And so it is in this exhibition, 'Cells of Human'. As in so many other of his exhibitions he not only draws on a wide range of genres and colours, but focuses on the boundaries we create to manage our world. Film, literature, comics, pop art, occasional echoes of Māori design - all are grist to his mill. He also cross-references himself and others, re-investigates, and revisits, conscious always of the complicated relationship between words, the things they purport to describe, and the visual world of planes, colours and dimensions. Sign, signified, and signifier are interrogated together. He has always been interested in change both in our world and in the past, which is how I first became interested in his work. In this exhibition change is at the forefront.Read more -
MANZ - Medal Art New Zealand
A Place to Stand 30 March - 18 April 2021This 2021 biennial exhibition has thirty-one artists presenting medals and /or small sculptures. A diversity is demonstrated in the works that make up this exhibition and is also reflective of...Read more -
Auckland Art Fair
BOOTH A6 24 - 27 February 2021New Zealand’s premier showcase for contemporary art returned in 2021 from Wednesday 24 – Saturday 27 February at The Cloud on Auckland’s Queens Wharf .Read more -
Nigel Brown
Dog 15 October - 3 November 2019Nigel Brown continues to challenge the viewer on social and environmental issues in this current exhibition. 'The dog was inspired by our black dog - this is how he looks...Read more -
MANZ - Medal Art New Zealand
About Face 19 March - 14 April 2019ARTIS Gallery is the host gallery for Medal Art New Zealand (MANZ) – a group of New Zealand’s leading contemporary sculptors. This 2019 biennial exhibition has thirty-four artists presenting medals...Read more
Publications
