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Scenes from the Beekeepers Passion, 2012

The Stutterers - Nights With Te Arawa, 2012

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 Michael Hight.

Michael Hight
b. 1961

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2012 Dreams of Children, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland

2011 Reliquary, Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

2010 From Waimarino to Red Jacks, John Leech Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

Wakatipu, Milford Galleries, Queenstown, New Zealand

2009 The Road to Erewhon, Milford Galleries, Dunedin, New Zealand

2008 Michael Hight, John Leech Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

2007 Recent Work, Milford Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand

2006 Taieri, Milford Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand

Manuherikia, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

New Paintings, John Leech Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

2005 New Paintings, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

2004 Land of Milk and Honey, John Leech Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

New Works, Milford Galleries, Dunedin, New Zealand

2002 Omarama, Place of Light, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

2001 Campbell Grant Galleries, Christchurch, New Zealand

2000 Northern Landscapes, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

1999 Recent Paintings, Campbell Grant Galleries, Christchurch, New Zealand

Recent Paintings, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

1998 Maungakakaramea, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland New Zealand

Gazetteer, Janne Land Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

1997 Footnote, Campbell Grant Galleries, Christchurch, New Zealand

1996 Four Strong Winds, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

Four Strong Winds, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

1995 In Trust, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

Seven Rivers, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

1992 Heartland Trinkets, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

1991 Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

1990 The Quick Brown Fox, Sculpture Installation, Fisher Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

1989 Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

1988 Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

Jonathan Jensen Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand

33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

1987 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

1986 Falcon Gallery, London, England

The Foyer Gallery, Hampstead, London, England

1984Words and Pictures Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

Selected Group Exhibitions

2012 New Year, New Works, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland

2010 Frieze, Gow Langford Gallery, Auckland

2009 Masterworks, Milford Gallery, Queenstown, New Zealand

2008 Drawings, John Leech Gallery, Auckland

2007Te Turinga: Turning Point City Gallery, Wellington

2005The North Western Line, Corban Estate Art Centre

2004 Landscape Show, Lopdell House, Titirangi

2001Wild Season, City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

1999Crossed Out, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

1998 Christmas Show, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

1998 Current Abstraction, Milford House, Dunedin, New Zealand

1997 Visa Gold Contemporary Art Awards, Auckland Art Gallery, Wellington City Gallery, New Zealand

1995 Found Objects, Outreach, Auckland, New Zealand

1993Gift of the Artist, Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand

1992 Pacific Traces, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand

1991 Big Pictures Show, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

Selected Bibliography

Elizabeth Knox, Wandering Eye, catalogue, Milford Gallery, 2004.

Gregory O’Brien, Land of Milk and Honey, catalogue, John Leech Gallery, 2004

Warwick Brown, 100 New Zealand Paintings by 100 New Zealand Artists, Godwit Publishing, Auckland, 1995, p36

Elizabeth Caughey & John Gow, Contemporary New Zealand Art 2, David Bateman Ltd, Auckland, 1999, p 66

Paula Green, Walking in the World, Michael Hights Trust in Place, Art New Zealand No.77, Summer 1995/96,p 77

Paula Green, Four Strong Winds, catalogue, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, 1996

Paula Green, Omarama, Place of Light, catalogue, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, 2002

Michael Hight is a self-taught artist whose preferred medium is oil on canvas. His work considers the notion of the beehive as a metaphor for transformation. “The beehive metaphor appeals to the artist as a site of transformation, a setting where wax becomes honeycomb, where the luminous, geometric structure witnesses the conversion of nectar into honey. And each beehive transforms the artist’s palette, the ochre, white, and red, into sensual image. The paintings stand as portraits of the New Zealand landscape yet they also stand as portraits of the art making process. The artist, like the bee, navigates, collects, and transforms.” (Paula Green, Omarama, Place of Light: Michael Hight’s Beehive Paintings.)

Set within an archetypal New Zealand rural landscape, stacks of hives become the main protagonist within each scene. Seasonal, geographical and compositional variations are explored which allow the artist to negotiate subtle nuances in light, tone, composition and intensity of hue. Hight’s paintings are technically sophisticated and meticulous in their attention to detail. Stylistically, Hight's works appear anchored within realism and incite comparisons with American realist painter Andrew Wyeth, whose desolate landscapes remain mysteriously uninhabited. However on close inspection, the application of paint and arrangement of elements within the composition clearly reveal Hight’s proficiency as an abstractionist.

Combined with a noticeable absence of activity, the works reveal a crucial paradox which Gregory O’Brien cites is central to Hight’s work, where “…the immense activity within the hives is so comprehensively contradicted by the inactivity of their external appearance.” (O’Brien, Gregory, Michael Hight: Land of Milk and Honey, John Leech Gallery (Catalogue), Auckland, 2004.) One cannot help but regard the works as symbolic of the human condition.

Michael Hight lives and works in Auckland and has exhibited widely throughout New Zealand. His work is held in public and private collections within New Zealand including Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, The Chartwell Collection, The James Wallace Trust and Coopers Lybrand.

Lives in Auckland, New Zealand

Primarily a self-taught artist, Michael Hight was born in Stratford, Taranaki and has been painting since his early teens. Although his work is varied, he is most commonly associated with his realistic depictions of New Zealand’s East Coast landscapes, which often appear dotted with his unmistakable beehive motifs. The sun-drenched New Zealand landscape serves as a predominant basis for much of his work yet, in more recent works Hight surprises us with his delicate, and sometimes unsettling, re-presentations of his childhood.

Such exhibitions as The Dreams of Children (2012) verge on the autobiographical – Hight temporarily leaves behind his identifiable landscapes and instead conjures within his surreal dreamscapes a more personal sense of real childhood innocence. Of this exhibition Hight has said, “I am interested in the way objects, places and events reassemble themselves through memory.” His use of juxtaposition, ambiguous symbols and an overwhelming sense of the dark and mysterious, together create an uncertainty that is as curiously haunting as it is beautiful. His work does not only reference Aotearoa, but also shows influence from such 16^th century Northern artists such as Pieter Brueghel, whose Tower of Babel (c.1563) is the basis of his From the Argo to Audobon (2012). His use of oil paint and clean line come together to form compelling images of a high quality and finish which evoke an elegant intensity, whilst mystifying and delighting his viewers.