Nigel Brown: Cells of Human

Long 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.

 

Nigel's images are like his words and phrases. You expect words to unfold in sequences which cumulatively say something. Not him. The words and phrases disrupt our expectations, juxtaposing meanings, confronting each other and the viewer, the letters arranged in words, the words in phrases, but the phrases bouncing off each other while evoking a larger theme. In this case it is change. Cells are ever changing. Bodies change. So are landscapes and environments, the changes that come with age, illness, depression, elation, even the climate changing.

 

Erik Olssen - Art collector and Emeritus Professor of History