Brian Millard: Lost and Found – A Retrospective

Opening in the Main Gallery
Saturday 8 March 2 – 3.30pm

“In painterly terms the words ‘lost and found’ refer to the edges of a shape. ’Lost’ describes how where values are ‘close’, edges merge or bleed one into another. And where edges are defined and sharp they are ‘found’.  But ‘lost and found’ has another meaning which is pertinent to the timing of this exhibition.

About twelve years ago my partner Marilyn Palmer Story (also a well-respected watercolourist) and I took a huge gamble. In the process we lost Auckland and found Otago. We purchased a couple of acres of paddock close to Arrowtown almost on Lake Hayes. We built a home and studios, a teaching facility and a commercial sized gallery on the site surrounded by mountains on all sides. We had no guarantee that we would be able to survive through our art.

Our first sale came before we had opened the doors officially. It was cause for celebration; and we toasted ourselves with a bottle of Moet. As time went on there were many more bottles of Moet, until regular sales became common place and we no longer felt the need to mark each one.

After more than a decade of successful painting and trading we look back on our time in Otago with a sense of wonder at our own initial foolhardiness and how we managed to do what we did. We returned to Auckland a year ago. We have not completely lost Otago but have found Auckland once more. It has been a splendid round trip.” – Brian Millard