Urban Anxiety Art Exhibition
Daniel Unverricht para-noir 16 September - 4 October 2003 Oedipus Rex Gallery, Auckland OPENING FUNCTION 16 SEPTEMBER 5
-7PM
For para-noir Unverricht has created representational oil on canvas paintings of nocturnal urban images. Unverricht
describes his work as having, "areas of inespacability and multiple choice exits", but it is the lack of a clear escape
route that is often most prominant and disquieting in his work.
In para-noir Unverricht conjures a dead-of-night urban anxiety. In the still, empty silence of his spaces is a sense of
foreboding, an unidentified impending danger. His urban landscapes hold unnamed threat in their impenetrable shadows.
Urban paranoia prevails, every unlit place has the potential for violence.
By turning his focus to the dangers of modern city life Unverricht reminds us of safer times past when people knew their
neighbours and their neighbourhoods.
Unverricht is influenced by hardboiled 50's crime fiction and his experiences of provincial city life in Hastings.
Daniel Unverricht is a recent Elam MFA graduate. He has been a twice winner of the supreme award at the Hawke's Bay Art
Review, Hawke's Bay Museum; a two time Wallace Award finalist; a finalist in the Nokia Art Awards - Asia Pacific and a
finalist in this years Norsewear Art Award. His work is in the collections of James Wallace, Hawke's Bay Museum and
leading NZ artists whose work he admires, such as photographer Laurence Aberhart.