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Sunday Star Times


The cover of the magazine that accompanied yesterday's edition of a national Sunday newspaper.
The original photo has had space added to the top and bottom, to make room for the typesetting.



Often editors take liberties with my images and crop them, which usually makes me rather unhappy. This is a very unusual case. The balance created by the designer seems well executed and I am pleased with it.

The photo was also printed inside the magazine.

The image immediately reminds me of musical score, which given that I am now studying the piano,
and am involved with looking at music several times every day, does not seem surprising.

The Sunday Star Times has a current print run of 202,000 and an estimated readership of 650,000, so this is good coverage. I've had exhibitions at dealer galleries in the past where I've been lucky if there have been, over a 3 week run, 200 visitors.

Most importantly, perhaps, is that having a photo put out there like this is a morale booster, an uplifting way to start the year.

Janet's Hand.

Janet is a yoga teacher who I knew about 10 years ago. I was so impressed by her
flexiblility that I asked her to come to my Auckland studio and press her hand against a wall.

This she did with ease.

Luc Tuymans

New Plymouth has a great library. A few days ago I borrowed a new book on the work of Luc Tuymans b. 1958. Two things impressed me about it.

Firstly, how much I liked the work. Secondly, how much work I have seen in this country that is clearly influenced by him.

Of course, in a country that doesn't even have the population of Atlanta, Georgia, it's understandable that much of the art work made here will be cover versions of what is being acclaimed overseas. Another huge influence in New Zealand at present is the Japanese artist, Takashi Murakami b.1962.

Sunset from my balcony 9.15pm 31st Jan 2007
(click to enlarge)

Wrestlers 2003

This photo is a close-up of a marble copy of a Greek statue. I don't know where the original is, but this copy is one of two that are in NZ. One is in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and this one is in the Sarjeant Gallery in Wanganui.
I was pleased with this image, and printed it up an edition which I released onto the market. Some viewers were a little puzzled by the figures in the photo, being unsure whether they were real or not. One person even asked me which one was me! Unfortunately I think that he was joking.

A few weeks ago I was looking at the interior of the main Catholic Church here in New Plymouth, and was impressed by the concrete bas-relief Stations of the Cross that Michael Smither made some years ago. Again I was interested to see some sculpture based on the human figure.


The 14 Stations of the Cross are a compulsory part of every Catholic Church in this country and having had a strict Catholic upbringing (although now I'm an atheist) I was exposed to many sets of them. Coming from a family and a culture which was not strong on the visual arts to put it mildly, they made a big impression on me. Almost all the art that I saw was religious. Although I was fortunate enough to have regular exposure to Life magazine, which at that time regularly published photographic essays by top photographers such as Edward Steichen, Lee Miller, Dorothea Lange, and Margaret Bourke-White.

Generally the Stations of the Cross were, in art terms, just plain awful, even kitsch. Hence it was a relief to walk into St Joseph's here in New Plymouth and see Stations that had some force and sincerity to them.

Christianity is, in global terms, an unusual religion in that it worships a mutilated god. I remember, in a television series made by English historian Bamber Gascoigne, and called The Christians, him saying that it is the only religion in the world to do so. I often wonder what psychological effect all the Christian art that I was exposed to had on me as a child, and ask myself if it still does affect me in some ways. I was brought up on the lives of the saints. I particularly remember one who had her hat nailed to her head. Flagellation was normal, we even drank blood and ate flesh during Mass. Keep in mind that many Roman Catholics believe that via transubstantiation, the Mass literally transforms bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ. The Mass is a cannibalistic ceremony.

I fervently believed and practised these ideas, even in my early 20's I wanted to be a priest. My middle name is Chanel, hence I am Peter Chanel, named after the only Catholic saint to have ever lived in this country. He died in 1841, on Futuna, in the Fiji group of islands, clubbed to death by some of the indigenous people who did not like his ideas. I used to adhere to the orthodox Catholic belief that matyrdom such as this was a shortcut to 'heaven'.

Octopus 1985

Fish shops as inspiration.

For the second time in a month, I have been inspired by something that I have seen in a fish shop. A new business, recently opened in New Plymouth, is selling fish caught by their own boat, and sold straight to the public. Most days their boat arrives at around 2 pm.

Today, while there to buy a whole fish for a BBQ tonight, I noticed that they had an octopus for sale. It had been arranged so that one of its eyes was in the the middle, looking straight at customers.

I felt some sorrow for the creature, finding it hard not to think of how it must have died in fear. All the same I felt that if I was to have clear access to it, unlike the above snap, which I had to take through curved glass, there could be a photo there. Octopus eyes are not like fish eyes. They look full of intelligence.

So I need to, perhaps buy a whole octopus, arrange it myself, and see if I can do a much improved version of the above image. Or maybe I could pay the shop to give me freer access to it. I'm not sure.

The previous inspiration was in seeing a some frozen crustaceans with the magnificent name of Moreton Bay Bugs. They reminded me of fossils, and of the something from the movie Alien. Unfortunately, the ones that I saw were on Waiheke Island in Auckland and I've not been able to find any more since then, even going to biggest fish shops in Auckland.

Later in the year I have to go to Brisbane, where these animals, which look like a crayfish that have been through wringer, are a big delicacy. That could be my chance. They could even help pay for my trip. Below is a photo of one. The image that I am after would be in b & w to emphasise the fossil look. I am also much more interested in the underview because of the strange legs. This image shows very little of the possibilities that I saw.