John Reynolds

John Reynolds was born in Auckland in 1956. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland in 1978. He has exhibited widely since 1980 including selection in Distance Looks Our Way: 10 Artists from New Zealand, Seville Expo, 1992. He was a finalist in the inaugural Walters Prize Awards, Auckland, New Zealand.

Curator Robert Leonard writes, for the exhibition:

'JOHN REYNOLDS' painting is grounded in drawing. He usually works in oil stick (oil paint in crayon form), rather than with paints-and-brushes, allowing him to draw on a heroic painting scale...Reynolds' works engage different logics of drawing (sketches, plans, charts, doodles) and layer different orders of representation (expressive marks, symbols, patterns, writing) for poetic effect. A romantic, his favourite signs - crosses, scaffolds, gallows, veils, webs, knots, floor plans, road signs, grids and miasmas - declare simultaneously a fascination with pointers (guidance) and a love of complexity, fragments, ruins (chaos)... ' Leonard's full wall text is displayed at the AAG during Nine Lives.