Born in Levin, Geoff Thornley studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts from 1960 to 1964, and had his first solo exhibition of figurative surrealist paintings at Barry Lett Galleries in Auckland in 1967. Such was his remarkable ability and talent that from this exhibition the Auckland City Art Gallery immediately acquired Ocean Within no.8 (1967), the first of 22 Thornley paintings now in their collection. Oceans Within shows a faceless man and a woman stepping towards the viewer, the besuited man holds his hand outstretched, palm upward, while behind them, the silhouettes of a trio of figures stride through the landscape. After being exposed to a plethora of Abstract Expressionist painting on his travels to London and the United States in 1968-69, Thornley returned to New Zealand and re-established himself as an abstract painter.

This construction shows the interest he had in making works where flat painted rectangular and trapezoid surfaces are combined to make three dimensional material objects. Dutch painter Piet Mondrian wrote about "counter-striving" where one element plays against the "tensing" of another to create dynamic compositions, and here we can see that concept in action. Placed on the magenta shape which acts as an anchor here are four smaller rectangles of primary and secondary colours which are activated by pairings of yellow and black (and in one case, white and black) blocks, all contained by a beige square base board.