18. Douglas MacDiarmid (1922 - 2020)
Untitled
Oil on canvas
60 x 92 cm
Signed & dated 1969
est. $2,000 - 3,000
Fetched $2,400
Relative Size: Untitled
Relative size

Creatures in Space XV is one of a major series of paintings inspired by watching surfers and bathers at Piha Beach, where Douglas' parents, Dr Gordon and Mary MacDiarmid, lived for many years in semi- retirement. They purchased a cottage in Piha in the early 1950s overlooking the beach, in the hopes of anchoring their artist son in New Zealand in this wildly beautiful place. It didn't work, but many memorable landscape and figurative paintings of Piha and its rugged coastline did result from his observations and sketches during his visits home.

Although Douglas was never a surfer, he was an enthusiastic swimmer, water skier and sunbaker who found the sea strongly restorative.

This series, and a darker companion series of paintings titled Creatures Entangled, were the product of his long 1960s meditation on the theme of the human predicament, which Douglas also referred to as the human 'condition'. While the other series examined individuals interacting in tight spaces, Creatures in Space portrayed quite the opposite - people embracing the natural elements at the beach, a location he returned to often in his work. The last eight paintings of the series were dedicated to surfers riding the waves - man challenged yet in harmony with the powerful forces of nature, the visual rhythm and freedom of sun, water and air.

In his battered old painting journal, the painter cryptically records this work as rider seated front on - in eye.

Creatures in Space XV came to New Zealand in 1970, one of nine in the series exhibited at his one-man show at John Leech Gallery, Lorne Street, Auckland from 23 March to 9 April 1971.

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