Julian Dashper
Julian Dashper (1960-2009) was an artist of tremendous ambition, whose meticulous works were highly conscious of their place within both local and international art-historical contexts.
Dashper’s work was aware of Aotearoa’s geographical positioning, engaging with the way our country receives and disseminates visual information. His work addressed the reading of international modernism in New Zealand art, given that the local understanding of great modernist works at the time was largely through reproduction. Dashper’s work was often in dialogue with other artists, including Allen Maddox and John Reynolds, and he was, by many accounts, an effective and generous teacher.
Dashper received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland in 1982. He exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. Significant solo exhibitions include Julian Dashper, A Survey, Centre of Contemporary Art, Hamilton (1987); The Big Bang Theory, Artspace, Auckland (1993); The Twist, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (1999); Midwestern Unlike You and Me: New Zealand’s Julian Dashper, Sioux City Art Centre (2005). His work was included in After McCahon: Some Configurations in Recent Art, Auckland City Art Gallery (1989); Julian Dashper, Mark Adams, Philip Clairmont, The Painting Part, Centre of Contemporary Art, Hamilton (1990); Headlands: Thinking Through New Zealand Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (1992); Stop Making Sense, City Gallery, Wellington (1995). His work has been the subject of several major New Zealand retrospectives, including Julian Dashper & Friends, City Gallery, Wellington (2015); Julian Dashper: Professional Practice, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland (2010). In 2001 Dashper was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and was the artist-in-residence at the Donald Judd Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.
Dashper is represented in all major public collections in Aotearoa, along with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska; Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. His estate is represented by Michael Lett, Auckland and Hamish McKay, Wellington.
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A Moment in Time: Dashper, Reynolds, Maddox
Celebrating the Chartwell Collection 24 Aug - 14 Sep 2024 OnehungaLast year, The Chartwell Collection invited Galleries across Aotearoa to participate in a yearlong celebration of their 50th Anniversary. Fittingly, their initiative put the focus on artists and highlighted the...Read more -
Dashper / Reynolds
13 Jun - 7 Jul 2012 Auckland CityIn 1984 new works by Julian Dashper and John Reynolds were exhibited together at a gallery in Wellington. At the time it was noted that these works were “about living in New Zealand and living in the world at the same time. There is simultaneously order and disorder. Everything is in motion, and to survive change we abstract our experience. We reflect ourselves back on the world according to the abstractions we have made.” (Virginia Were, Art NZ “John Reynolds/Julian Dashper”, Autumn 1985. Number 34. P.17)Read more
Nearly thirty years later this exhibition Dashper / Reynolds brings together works by these artists from this period and contemplates their relationship at a specific point in their careers. The pairing considers the rapport of two diverse artists, both of whom are significant figures in New Zealand art history in their own right, working in common territories. Naturally, over time their careers have diverged and such a pairing of newer work may not be so immediately palpable. Dashper, who passed away in 2009, is widely known for his contribution to abstraction, conceptualism and minimalism while Reynolds more recent works are largely text based such as his 2008 Walters Prize Nomination work Cloud.
