PAINTWORK and Limen Country at PAULNACHE is a response to Two Laws: One Big Spirit by Rusty Peters and Peter Adsett, recently acquired by The Art Gallery of South Australia. Two Laws: One Big Spirit at AGSA in Adelaide was curated by Nici Cumpston, Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Artistic Director, Tarnanthi and is now on public display situated in Gallery 7. Read more … 

Peter Adsett’s PAINTWORK, that debuted in Carriageworks at Sydney Contemporary 2023, are curated alongside Limen Country I & IV which he painted at Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory directly after the collaborative/reactive works Two Laws: One Big Spirit with Rusty Peters in 2000. The release of these two works from the Adsett Estate is highly significant.

PAINTWORK is an invitation to the viewer to mentally unpack the paintings.  In making black and white negotiate, Adsett puts figuration into doubt at every point. Ultimately, it is the understanding of human perception that is in question. These are paintings not just seen with the eyes, but experienced in the body.

Peter Adsett’s abstract painting is a critique of the medium, from its roots in the early twentieth century. That task is further complicated by his deeply felt appreciation for the painting of First Nations people of Australia and Aotearoa. 

Born in Turanganui-a-Kiwa, Aotearoa, NZ in 1959, Adsett now lives in Australia. He exhibits in both countries.

Peter Adsett was represented by William Mora Galleries, Melbourne; GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney & Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington.

Adsett has been represented by PAULNACHE since 2009, with his inaugural exhibition “Matawhero: Bullet Holes & Bandages” launching the establishment as PAULNACHE. 

Viewer, this title is an invitation, a challenge to enter a game. To unwrap Adsett’s structural principle is to engage with his wit, and to be astonished by the acuity of his means. And he proceeds with so few components.

Most of my work over the years is about the frame and the viewer. I’m framing the viewer. It sounds like a crime scene!

Paintwork is dealing more overtly with frame-as-figure. Spectators can decipher the play here as well. If painting can be thought of as a dialogue between a sender and a receiver, the function of the frame is critical. Adsett emphasises that function in two main ways. Firstly, as with the small paintings, the figurative squares and rectangles are decentred. Conversely, frames are permitted to leave their rightful place at the edges of the support, and invade the centre as figures. 

Frames around pictures are there to accentuate an impassable border between real space (that of the wall, the room, and the spectator), and the fictive space of the picture within. A viewer cannot inhabit the latter, except in imagination. What happens when the respective roles of frame and picture are exchanged? 

The artificial ‘light’ of the painting becomes one with the external, natural light (see how the white edges of the stretcher are made to bleed into the wall.) In this way, the space of the spectator is converted into the space of painting. As the quote above suggests, Peter has always stressed that his paintings aim to operate on us bodily, as well as cognitively. The tension in the work, caused by black and white reversing roles as figure or ground, is to be “felt as a jolt.”

This abstraction is ultimately a structural critique of the medium of painting itself, drawing our attention to painting’s relationship to human perception.

– Text by art historian Mary–Alice Lee © 2023

Paintings 1 – 5

PAINTWORK

Catalogue of work: (in order of appearance, as shown above)

1. Paintwork number 1 & 2 (diptych), 2023, Acrylic on linen, 135 x 260 x 3cm

2. Paintwork number 3, 2023, Acrylic on linen, 135 x 122 x 3cm

3. Paintwork number 4, 2023, Acrylic on linen, 135 x 122 x 3cm

4. Paintwork number 5, 2023, Acrylic on linen, 135 x 122 x 3cm

‘He hath shut and enclosed my ways with square stones’

(Lamentations 3, 9) 

Limen Country

Limen Country was painted at Humpty Doo, Northern Territory, Australia directly after the collaborative / reactive works ‘Two Laws - One Big Spirit ’ with Rusty Peters. The release of these two (2) works from the Adsett Estate is highly significant.

Exhibition History

Limen Country I – VI, 2000-2001, Humpty Doo, Northern Territory, Australia

• 2001: March, Limen Country I – V, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne Australia 

• 2001: November, Linda Norden, Curator, Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums described her experience upon seeing Limen Country IV, whilst Adsett was participating in the International Studio Programme in New York, and advised Adsett not to sell it (at the time).  

• 2001: Patrick Hutchings: Eyeline 45 Autumn/Winter, 2001

• 2011: March, Limen Country V, RAFT Art Space, Alice Springs, Australia

• 2011: May, Limen Country I, 9 Parameters with PAULNACHE, 147 Cuba Street, Wellington

Limen Country

Catalogue of work: (in order of appearance, left to right, as shown above)

1. Limen Country I
   Year: 2000-2001
   Humpty Doo, Northern Territory, Australia
   Synthetic polymer on linen
   165 x 102 x 4cm
   Status: Available
   Price on application

2. Limen Country IV
   Year: 2000-2001
   Humpty Doo, Northern Territory, Australia
   Synthetic polymer on linen
   165 x 102 x 4cm
   Status: Available
   Price on application

Acquisitions

• Limen Country VI, 2000-2001, Art Bank, Sydney, Australia

• Limen Country III, 2000-2001, Private Collection, Australia

Selected Paintings 2014–15

Additional Links

• Two Laws One Big Spirit by Rusty Peters & Peter Adsett at AGSA

• Peter Adsett and Nici Cumpston, Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Artistic Director, Tarnanthi, in conversation to discuss the significant new display Two Laws One Big Spirit.

• Peter Adsett’s ‘Paintwork’ at Carriageworks, during Sydney Contemporary 2023: Part I

• Peter Adsett’s ‘Pastoral Station 8402’ at Carriageworks, during Sydney Contemporary 2022: Part II

• About Dr Peter Adsett

Acknowledgements

Curated by: Gallery Director, Matt Nache
Text: Mary–Alice Lee
Photography: Thomas P Teutenberg, Felix Adsett
Exhibition: PAINTWORK & Limen Country in response to Two Laws: One Big Spirit
Dates: 11 April – 31 May 2025
Exhibited: PAULNACHE
Location: Upstairs 89 Grey Street CBD Gisborne 4010, Aotearoa NZ

Gallery Hours

PAULNACHE is open Wed–Sat 11–2pm and will remain open over the Easter Weekend 2025. Private viewings are available by appointment, for more information email: now@paulnache.com