About

Judy Millar, I will, should, can, must, may, would like to express, 2005

Please note that some of the above works may no longer be available. See our Stockroom for a range of available works or contact us for a detailed inventory of available works by Judy Millar.

Judy Millar
b.1957, Auckland, New Zealand
Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand and Berlin, Germany

Judy Millar is one of New Zealand’s most internationally recognised artists. She shares her time between Auckland and Berlin and has a significant reputation in Europe, which continues to gain momentum.

Recent career highlights include two exhibitions at the Venice Bienniale (representing New Zealand with her solo exhibition Giraffe-Bottle-Gun , 2009; and in Time, Space, Existence a curated exhibition including new works by Carl Andre and Marina Abramovic, 2011); exhibitions at Rohkunstbau, Berlin and Schloss Marquardt, Potsdam, and a feature in Sculpture Magazine (November 2011). Works from her 2011 Ferryman series have already been collected by the Museum St Gallen and Tichy Foundation in Prague.

Broadly speaking Millar works from a within conceptual painting framework, in which she freely references painting's recent histories, particularly delighting in plundering the expressiveness of gestural painting. Working with processes of erasure, wiping or scraping paint off the surface of the work, Millar takes up known positions only to deconstruct and question their previous meanings. In recent years Millar has used mechanically-generated enlargements of handmade gestures to challenge our expectations of the expressive gesture and of the efficacy of painting as a contemporary means of communication. In these works is a clear desire to grant painting the same power as all the other images that press upon us daily.

Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland
Master of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland
1991 Post Graduate Studies, undertaken at Academia Albertina - Turin, Italy

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2013 Comic Drop, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
IMA, Brisbane, Australia
2012 The Rainbow Loop, MgK, Otterndorf, Germany
2011 Lucifer Bring the Light, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
The Path of Luck, Palazzo Bembo, Venice Italy
The Hierarchy Problem, Macht, Rohkunstbau, Schloss Marquart, Potsdam, Germany
2009 Giraffe-Bottle-Gun at the Venice Biennale, La Maddelena,Venice, Italy
New Works 2008-09, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
2008 Matte Black. Galerie Mark Mueller, Zurich, Switzerland
2007 Butter for the Fish, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
Keeping You You Keeping Me Me, Lopdell House Gallery, Auckland
2005 I will, should, can, must, may, would like to express, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Recent Painting, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
Here Eyes Are Hell, Galerie Mark Mller, Zurich, Switzerland
Flammpunkt with Sophia Schama, Spielhaus-Morrison Galerie, Berlin, Germany
Veils, Trails and Horses Tails, Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2004 Open Hand, 64zero3, Christchurch
To the Is-ness, Galerie Mark Muller, Zurich, Switzerland
The Shooting Gallery, Ramp Gallery, Hamilton, New Zealand
Id Like Painting, Gow Langsford Gallery Auckland, New Zealand
2003 I is She, as You to Me, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand
The brush moves this way, the brush moves that, Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2002 Dont call me baby, baby, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
The Shape of a Curve, Gow Langsford Gallery, Sydney, Australia
The Year I was Born and the Year I was Born, Again, Blockland Projects, Auckland, New Zealand
2001 New Paintings, Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
1999 Scary Sunsets and Other Views, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1998 Seam, Campbell Grant Galleries, Christchurch, New Zealand
1997 Solid Body, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Mask, New Works Studio, Wellington, New Zealand
1996 Strip, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1995 Window Window, Collaboration with Vicki Kerr, New Work Studio, Wellington, New Zealand
Beast, Collaboration with Vicki Kerr, Teststrip, Auckland, New Zealand
1994 The Past and Future Perfect, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1990 Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1989 Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1988 Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1987 Aberhart North Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1986 Aberhart North Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
1981 On the Line, 100m2, Auckland, New Zealand
1980 Making Tracks, 100m2, Auckland, New Zealand

Selected Group Shows
2013 Partners Dance, Gifts From the Patrons, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New
Artists for Tichy- Tichy for Artists, Gask, Gallery of Central Bohemia, Czech Republic
2012 New Year, New Works, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
Melbourne Art Fair, Gow Langsford Gallery, Stand D08
Contact: Artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt Germany
2011 Driven to Abstraction, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
Personal Structures: Time Place Existence, 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
The Ring,

Rohkunstbau, Berlin, Germany

Residencies
2007 McCahon Arts Residency, McCahon House, French Bay, Auckland

Public Lectures
2003 Visiting Artists Lecture, Dunedin Public Art Gallery
1997 Artists Profile Series, Lecture with Jude Rae, Auckland Art Gallery
1994 Lecture in conjunction with A Very Peculiar Practice, City Gallery, Wellington
1993 Invited lecturer to members of Architectural Association, University of Auckland
1992 Public Lecture in conjunction with Surface Tension exhibition, Auckland City Art Gallery
1992 Lecture at Auckland Society of Arts

Awards and Scholarships
Goethe Institute Language Scholarship 2003
Creative New Zealand Grant 2003
Dunedin Public Art Gallery Visiting Artist 2003
Winner James Wallace Awards 2002
Winner Tokoroa Art Award 1990
Holder of Italian Government Scholarship for Post Graduate Study in Turin, Italy 1991
Moet and Chandon New Zealand Art Foundation Fellowship Avize, France 1994
Travel Grant to New York, France, Germany, New Zealand Arts Council, 1994

Collections
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki
Dunedin Public Gallery
Wallace Arts Trust
Private Collections - New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Germany

Selected Bibliography
Amery, Mark, Painting for the mind and eye,
Amery, Mark Masks from Elsewhere, Evening Post, Wellington, November 12th 1997
Barton, Christine Framing the Real - Post modern discourses in New Zealand Art, Headlands Catalogue ed. Mary Barr, 1992
Byrt, Anthony Sticky, Ramp Press/Whitecliffe, 2004
Byrt, Anthony, Judy Millar: How to Paint Backwards, Gow Langsford Gallery, 2003
Cumming, S Fresh Tension, Stamp magazine, October 1992
Dale, Richard Abstraction Resited, Art New Zealand, 66, 1992
Dale, Richard Large Paintings, New Zealand Herald, June 1990
Daly-Peoples, John, Winning artwork uses primitive expressionism, The National Business Review, September 13, 2002, p51
Emmerling, L. (edt) Judy Millar: YOU YOU ME ME, Kerber Art, Germany 2009
Emmerling, L. (edt.) Giraffe-Bottle-Gun: Judy Millar, published on occasion of the 53rd Venice Biennale 2009. Kerber Art, Germany, 2009
Emmerling, Leonhard, Keeping You You, Keeping Me Me; Judy Millars Gesture, Lopdell House, 2007
French, Blair Gordon Walters - Parallel Lines: Gordon Walters in context, World Art, January 1995
Gerig, Karen. Nur Schoenheit Allein Taught zu Wenig. Review, Basler Zeitung, September, 2003
Greenstein, M.A. Second Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, World Art, No.12, 1997
Hanflin, Richard, Exhibitions/Auckland, Art New Zealand, Summer, 2005/2006, p34-35
Herrick, Linda, Destination: world for Wallace Art Award winner, The New Zealand Herald, Monday September 9, 2002
Kalina, Richard, Report from New Zealand: A Change of Empires, Art in America, no.9, October, 2005, pp83-89
Leigh, Sarah Surface Tension, Craccum, September 1992
Leonard, Robert, I will, should, can, must, may, would like like to express, Auckland Art Gallery News, 2005
Lister, A, Review of New Paintings at Bartley Nees Gallery, Art New Zealand, No 101, p. 33, 2001
Lonie, Bridie, Childs Play: Judy Millars I is she, as you to me, Art New Zealand, 2003
McAloon, William Veering Distinctly towards the line New Zealand Listener, May 3, 2003
McNamara, T.J. New Zealand Herald, Review, 21 August 1996
Smith, Allen The Past and Future Perfect, Art and Text, 50, 1995
McNamara, T.J., The galleries: Spirit-lifting work offers excitement by the yard, The New Zealand Herald, 14 April, 2004
McNamara, T.J. The Carnivalesque Body, New Zealand Herald, December 1992
McNamara, T.J. Emerging Themes from the Young and the Restless, New Zealand Herald, September 1992
?m2 - a ten year survey, Tension Magazine, June 1990
McNamara, T.J. Review of Gow Langsford show, New Zealand Herald, 1988
McNamara, T.J. Review of Aberhart North show, New Zealand Herald, 1987
Millar, Judy : The Rainbow Loop. Limited Edition Catalogue, published by Kerber Verlag, Germany, 2012
Womens art for arts sake, New Zealand Star, 1980
McNamara, T.J. Brick Walls in the Gallery', New Zealand Herald, 1980
Ossher, Ian (edt.)Notions of Mortality, Lino, No. 2, 2003.
Paton, Justin. I is She as You to Me, Dunedin Public Art Gallery catalogue, 2003
Pauli, Dorothee, Art Reviews: Brief Notion, The Press, Christchurch, February 6, 2002, p36
Pound, Frances Walters as Translator, Midwest, 3, 1993
Shand, Peter The Contingency of Vision The Goodman-Suter Contemporary Art Project, 2001, pg 36
Shand, Peter If I Were Penelope... Art New Zealand, 90, Winter 1999
Smith, Allan Judy Millar: as light as in-between Judy Millar, catalogue, Gow Langsford Gallery, 1998
Smith, Allan Skirting Abstraction - skepticism and sensibility, Art New Zealand, 82, Autumn 1997
Smith, Allen and Leigh Davis, A Very Peculiar Practice - aspects of recent New Zealand Painting, City Gallery, Wellington, 1995
Turner, Caroline and Rhona Devonport (ed.) The Second Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, 1996
Were, Virginia, Shaky Gesturalism, Art News, Summer, 2002, pp44-45
White, Alice Women Artists take their share of the glare, Herald Tribune, 7th November, 1993