Josh’s landscapes often capture the geography of the heart - the places we call ‘ours’ and that define who we are and where we are from. Depictions of the scenes we know and love, that help connect us all through a shared memory of place. Josh believes in the stories that places can tell. The scenes painted become an access point for memories that bring with them the comfort of a familiar face.
In keeping with Josh’s documentation of places and objects we know and love - this new show is a rambling exploration of Auckland’s Cornwall Park, with a particular focus on the woodier residents that call the park home.
The exhibition features 10 large acrylic landscapes of the park. (Or portraits of its trees). Well-loved and familiar corners of the park underpinned by our personal and collective memories of a simpler, sunnier time.
There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears in each painting. They take time, and that time matters. For Josh it is about meeting with the painting and working out what is and isn’t working until the connection is right. That’s what makes the process so personal.
Josh shares the personal story behind this collection.
These trees, most of which have looked the same since we first met, are now a source of reassuring familiarity in a time when everything else in the world seems to be changing so quickly.
As a small kid I remember scrambling over the sprawling roots of the Moreton Bay Fig trees, the roots wide and high and bulbous. We would find one to call our own horse and clamber up onto it’s back before slapping it’s flanks and galloping off side-by-side into the distance. Or you could magically disappear by slipping down between the roots into a hidey hole, as confused siblings searched all around you.
One of those MB fig trees was a particular beacon for our family picnics. Especially on Boxing Day when Mum would get up early and call everyone she’d ever met and invite them to bring their Christmas leftovers and come join us for a picnic ‘under the big tree in Cornwall Park.
When I think of this particular spot I’m reminded of the different people over the years I sat beneath this tree and picnicked with, or played cricket or frisbee with. Some of them aren’t here anymore and this is sort of an access point for my memories of them.
A few years on again and the trees of Cornwall Park became a place to pash under, or break-up under, or drink rocket-fuel at night with your mates under. A few years after that and my usage of the park and its trees became a little more wholesome again. I found myself watching my own boys ‘discovering’ the parks trees for the first time, and teaching them how to ride their own bikes there.
Today my relationship with the trees in the park is quite different. I spend a lot of time now admiring them from the perspectives of both a Painter and a Gardener and a Walker.
In each case I’m very appreciative for the magnificent trees in this park, I find their familiar presence reassuring and calming. I also think often of the people responsible for those trees being here today. Once upon a time the planters must have had a vision and chose a spot and dug a hole and planted that tree. Id imagine that they would have looked skyward above their new planting and imagine the canopy one day filling the sky. Planting just one tree that survives to be a big guy is special enough, but to plant thousands of them is something altogether.”
