Reece King

“For me painting is a cultural space with endless possibilities for re-imagination. Having become immersed in painting within the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, I also identify with conversations around painting of an international scope and engage with a history of visual language from the cave drawing to the lightsaber.

Painting isn’t about saying something, but a means of understanding our subjectivities and the cosmos. In the work there is an openness that allows the viewer an equal chance to experience the work as themselves; they needn’t understand anything further to the painting or what connotations may surround it. Everything never quite is and maintains a sense of unfulfilled possibility, and this allows the possibility of further questions. It disrupts the quest for meaning, and allows the act of looking - looking released from the burden of meaning, looking that is detached from transition, procedure and sequential constructions.”

Reece King was born in West Auckland in 1989. He graduated with a Master of Design (Painting) from Unitec in 2021. In 2020 King was one of the founders of Auckland ‘painter-run’ space, Sanc Gallery. In the same year, his painting, Good Socks was judged winner of the New Zealand Painting and Print Award by Julia Waite, curator New Zealand Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki.