Across the River features unique works on paper from New York-based artist Max Gimblett. The exhibition title speaks to the geographical distance between the United States and Aotearoa, and the experience of both physically and psychically navigating between these two places. Perhaps on a more subdued note, this modest idiom also acts as an acknowledgement of privilege and a reminder to practise empathy in these turbulent times; to reserve judgment of those on the other side of the river who may be facing unknown loss, hardship, or persecution.
American author Ernest Hemingway has long been a source of inspiration for Gimblett, with Hemingway’s prose on love and death resonating with the artist’s early creative endeavour and his lifelong pursuit to articulate truth and humanity through visual practice. Across the River is something of an ode to Hemingway’s Across the River and Into the Trees (1950), which left a remarkable impression on the artist when he first read the novel in his twenties.
Max Gimblett was born in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau in 1935 and moved to New York in 1972. His practice explores the meaning attached to revered objects and symbols, in particular the quatrefoil, which dates to pre-Christian times, found in Western and Eastern religions through forms such as the rose window, mandala, cross, and lotus.
Max Gimblett’s exhibition Across the River runs 9 Feb – 4 Mar 2023 at Page Galleries, 42 Victoria Street, Pōneke Wellington 6011.
