Rosemary Theunissen

The paintings carry conflicting identities. They combine the ordinariness of suburban houses, gardens and footpaths with a romantic sensibility: dramatic skies, deep shadows and tiny lone figures with their personal echoes.

I try to give my paintings some of the qualities of the photographs I take at night near my house in Mangere Bridge, to record the effects of light made by street lights, windows, the almost-dark sky or the camera flash.

I respond to accidents that happen from spraying or dripping oil paint.  Objects become partly erased or broken, setting up a play between realism and abstraction. These chance happenings allow me to enter into the painting and be led in new directions.

I am influenced by contemporary painters who question
representation, and who can capture simultaneous positions about the act of painting in their work.