Stuart Shepherd spent several years, from 2000-2010, challenging the art establishment in NZ, by discovering and championing self-taught (outsider) artists. His interest was in the unique visual languages of artists marginalised through disability or other disadvantages.
Some of the work was strikingly original because it had developed outside the orthodox educational process. Martin Thompson of Wellington had lived rough for years. Stuart worked with curators and collectors to recognise Martin’s skill, and his work was eventually Shown in New York City and collected by the American Folk Art Museum in N.Y and then by Te Papa.
Stuart worked for many years as a model-maker for commercial film and television (including work as a sculptor for LOTR), and he made prototypes for the toy industry in N.Y.C.
Between 1990 and 2005 Stuart was a casual member of the N.Z. theatre troupe Red Mole, and travelled with them as stage manager and prop-builder to New Mexico, Texas, Sydney and Wellington. Red Mole is the reason Stuart ended up in Wellington, and he credits them with influencing his ideas about art and community
For his Master’s degree in installation art, he re-imagined the learning environments of children, and collaborated with a Wellington engineer Bill Thompson, to produce mechanical furniture that functioned as interactive, kinetic sculpture.
He taught art and design at Massey University in Wellington, and has taught at Wintec, Tauranga Polytech, and at Hungry Creek craft school. He has taken small classes in his home in Raglan and at the Raglan Scout Hall where he helped establish the regular Tuesday evening life drawing sessions.
He has exhibited his interactive installation work at Victoria University Adam Art Gallery, Wellington City Gallery, The Dowse Museum, Pataka Museum, Ramp Gallery in Hamilton and Enjoy Gallery in Wellington.
This upcoming exhibition in Raglan will be his first exhibition of painting in N.Z. and it draws on his experience of the worlds of folk, self-taught and contemporary art. This series portrays local and childhood stories, as scenes of comic drama e.g. the baptism scene under the footbridge, the hooking of a stingray at night off the jetty, and the motorbike v. dog scene in Paeroa.
Exhibition showing at Chris Meek Studeo Gallery, 21 Cross St, Sept 27- Oct 6 . Opening Sept 27th 5.30pm.
A chat with Stuart
Art world experience?
I went to Art School in Christchurch in 1977. I loved it.
I studied film, but really just wanted to make stuff by hand. I went to East Sydney Polytech then made the pilgrimage to NYC, the centre of the art world back then.
I got work in the commercial film industry, worked for some artists and galleries and found out what the art and design industry is like. After 15 years as a freelance maker of props and models, I was ready to leave products and promotions and try teaching.
Teaching?
I got into teaching by sending out my CV and dragging around my portfolio of drawings. I also did my Master’s degree in fine art. I was about 45 at that time. I became a lecturer at Massey in Wellington as they set up a new degree in Fine Art. I had a great time teaching and I loved the opportunity and challenge to communicate effectively around ideas about art.
NY?
I was 27 when I moved to New York…so I had energy to work long hours and run around clubs and rooftop parties. I exhibited some of my work in clubs. I don’t miss that lifestyle, but the access to great museums, the art fairs, and the diversity of contemporary art I do miss. I also miss friends and my son. He doesn’t live in NY but he was born there.
My art practice?
Now that I’m suddenly an old guy, (they say old age arrives like a bug on your windscreen; it’s suddenly there) I’m noticing that the gears in my brain engage differently, (I’m not driving a mental Tesla, it’s now a Mitsubishi L300 van) so I have time to pay attention to my memory and imagination, and in my work I’m re-staging the little dramas that happen in everyday life. My struggle with paint is to find a technique to suit the images that pop up. My stylistic references range from Picasso to Ric and Morty.
So I’m back to the basic concerns of painting, colour relationships, form, composition, and movement. I understand that it is a luxury to concern myself with such things when it seems that the world is off the rails and so precarious. Raglan often seems like a cul-de-sac to the speeding highway of the world.
Anyway, (global mayhem aside) currently I’m quite happy with the work I’m producing; it’s evolving, it’s quite graphic and reproduces well. It looks good on tea towels, (even if it will probably never make it to the walls of the museum of modern art in NYC.)
Why Raglan?
I was very close to my mother; she loved the beach and the ocean. She also loved that old NZ small-town culture of sharing produce across the back fence. Her ashes were spread at Raglan Harbour. So I’m connected to Raglan.
What does your daily life look like here?
1) My morning coffee at Jyoti’s chai caravan and the wonderful cast of local characters who assemble there.
2) With my dog Frankton and the daily beach walking adventures he insists on.
3) My Tuesday evening drawing practice at the Old Scout Hall.
4) Beer tasting, watching super rugby, and vege gardening….
5) My little paint studio.
The drawing class at the Scout Hall.
The Scout Hall makes a great place to practice drawing the figure. Doug Ford, Martin, and Dominique are regular drawers. We are a loose collective and we welcome new people. The format of the class is traditional, with set times for poses etc. Feedback and informal instruction is available. It is possibly the friendliest and chattiest class I have ever been to; Raglan artists like to talk.
Class details: Tuesday evening 6-8pm Scout Hall, Cliff St.
