Allen Maddox

1948-2000
Born in England, lived in New Zealand

Allen Maddox is remembered as one of New Zealand’s finest abstract expressionist painters. Born in Liverpool, England, Maddox migrated to New Zealand in his early teens. He studied at Ilam School of Fine Arts in the late 1960s, where he made acquaintance with fellow painters Philip Clairmont and Tony Fomison. The notable trio became well-known as a tightly interwoven group of hard living, richly talented artists. Maddox exhibited throughout the country from the mid-1970s until his passing in 2000. Despite his relatively short career, Maddox made a contribution of enduring significance to New Zealand art. His works are held in notable public collections throughout the country, including Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa, The Chartwell Collection, and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

Maddox explored tension between structure and expressiveness in his paintings. This is perhaps most evident in the distinctive X motif, which he used repeatedly. The X is both structural and gestural. It could be read as a device to break up and analyse the picture plane. Yet, in Maddox’s hands, it is also expressive, a rebellion against strictures. Sometimes coupled with rectangular grids, the artist painted his X marks with vibrant palettes and vividly gestural brush marks. The results are mesmerising, visceral, and unlike anything else in New Zealand art. Prolific throughout his life, Maddox created an entire oeuvre using this distinctive motif.

Notable writer and curator Alice Hutchinson described Maddox’s X as, “employed often on its own or as a multiplied system within an intuitively constructed grid; a flexible, improvised, non-symmetrical, oscillating, rhythmic grid.” [1] The X could be seen as both constraint and artistically liberating; by restricting subject matter, the artist is free to focus on colour, paint application, gesture, and expression. Maddox found an endless stream of possibilities within the use of this simple device.

Maddox was idiosyncratic, and wholly committed to his art. Hutchinson quotes an anonymous friend of the artist, “Within the painting itself there is a high degree of intelligence and intellectualism […]. He didn’t play by anyone else’s rules... or live for approval.” [2] Taken by a bohemian worldview, Maddox lived a life through painting, creating a rich artistic legacy that remains insightful and vital to this day.

Gow Langsford Gallery has represented Allen Maddox since 1987 and continues to represent his estate.

[1] Allen Maddox: Systems of Disorder : Log 15: The X Issue - A publication from the Physics Room
[2] Ibid.