NORTHART was thrilled to be displaying a solo exhibition ‘Eclipse’ from Rohan Wealleans across both galleries. Eclipse presents Wealleans works on show for the first time to North Shore audiences. A range of recent works from Wealleans can be seen throughout the South and East galleries. Wealleans works across both painting and sculpture, his work often morphing between both.

Rohan Wealleans occupies various guises - painter, performer, offender, worldmaker - gleefully infusing his work with intricate fictions. The artist disregards categorisations like ‘high’ and ‘low’ in favour of diverse, at times otherworldly interests creating a curious fusion of painting and sculpture.

Wealleans completed a Master of Fine Arts in painting at the University of Auckland in 2003 and in the same year won the Waikato Art Prize. In 2006 he was the winner of the 15th Annual Wallace Art Award. Since 2001, Wealleans has exhibited regularly both in New Zealand and internationally. He was selected by David Elliot for the 17th Biennale of Sydney: The Beauty of Distance, Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age (2010).

Wealleans’ work was included in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, at the Queensland Art Gallery (2009). Other important group exhibitions include: Lost and Found: An Archaeology of the Present at the Tarrawarra Museum of Art Healesville and Just Painting at the Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (2007).

In 2008, Wealleans was selected by Rachel Kent for Best of Discovery at the Sh Contemporary, Shanghai, China. Other solo exhibitions include: Rogue, Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland (2009), Slave of the Cannibal God, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (2008), and Deep Heat, Hamish Mckay Gallery, Auckland (2008).

Wealleans’ work is in the collections of the Auckland Art Gallery, Te Papa Tongarewa - The Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, The Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth and the Chartwell Collection as well as private collections in Australia and New Zealand.

Courtesy of the artist and Ivan Anthony Gallery