Award-winning New Zealand composer & producer Stephen McCurdy debuts two decades of paintings in Metanoia.
Stephen McCurdy, award-winning composer for New Zealand film and television in the 1980’s and 1990’s, will exhibit two
decades’ worth of paintings at Depot Artspace from Saturday October 21 – Wednesday November 9.
Metanoia, which in Classical Greek translates to ‘change of mind’ or ‘change in the inner man’, promises to be a show
rich in identity, complicity, and morality, offering a fascinating display of the work McCurdy has completed between
1997 and 2017.
Reflecting his years of scoring music for theatre, television and documentary, Metanoia demonstrates an underlying
fascination with character and feeling, with myth, fable, and belief, with identity, isolation, and connection. Some of
the paintings are bleak, attesting encounters with depression and a pessimistic world-view. Others are more hopeful.
“I paint from what I have experienced, what I have lived and not lived, thought, felt and understood, probably even more
so from what I have not understood,” says McCurdy.
McCurdy believes he is only beginning to see what he can achieve with painting. His artistic practice has provided him
with a vital change in thinking, which in part has changed his way of living – his own personal metanoia.
Painting for McCurdy is a refuge from language and a way of evading the need to define, quantify or claim certainty
where it most likely doesn’t exist. He believes that some kind of narrative in his work is probably inescapable, and
even where it is not explicit in the making, it will probably emerge in the seeing.
Assailed as we are by digital images way beyond our capacity to absorb, there is a place for the silent, singular and
paradoxical stillness in paintings. As McCurdy explains, “It is easy to lose the desire and ability to stand still, to
watch and listen, easy to be caught up in speed and surface. I think a painting is worth keeping if it can sustain
concentrated looking.”
McCurdy’s abstract style presents visual translations mirroring that of Hieronymus Bosch with his works eliciting
imagery related to atheism, addiction, depression, and enlightenment. Depot Artspace is proud to host this milestone
exhibition for one of New Zealand’s foremost screen composers.
Metanoia officially launches on Saturday 21 October, 2:00pm – 3:30pm, at Depot Artspace, 28 Clarence Street, Devonport,
Auckland.
The exhibition runs from Saturday 21 October – Wednesday 9 October 2017 in the Main Gallery. -ENDS
Additional
Information:
In Conversation with Stephen McCurdy
Sunday 5 November 2017, 2:00pm – 3:00pm in the Main Gallery Join Stephen McCurdy for a fascinating discussion about his
artistic journey, his work and the multifaceted theme of Metanoia.
Stephen McCurdy
Stephen McCurdy started painting seriously at the age of 47. For most of his working life he wrote, arranged and
produced music for New Zealand theatre, television and film. He scored feature films including; Came a Hot Friday, The
End of the Golden Weather, Leave All Fair, Feathers of Peace, TV series Gloss and Heartland, dozens of documentaries and
hundreds of TV commercials. He also arranged and produced with Shona Laing her flagship South album. A full profile of
his work can be found here.
Apart from a few drawing classes McCurdy has no formal fine arts education. He has exhibited at ArtStation, Artemis,
Matakana and Lopdell House galleries, as well as Circa Theatre and the Aotea Centre.
Depot Artspace
Depot Artspace is an open and inclusive creative community in Devonport, Auckland that encourages engagement in all art
forms. Depot Artspace offers a variety of facilities, services and events that support the creative community including
galleries, a professional development programme, publications and a recording studio.