Greg Piper
Auckland, New Zealand.
I have worked in various creative fields: film-making and television; magazine design; secondary art teaching; and for 27 years up until 2020, lecturing in graphic / communication design at Auckland University of Technology. I currently work full-time on my art practice, mostly in bronze.
My art-work has explored drawing and various media including timber, cast-resin, etched glass, bone (carving), korowai (weaving), and bronze casting. A background in fine-arts and design has influenced how I work in a wide range of media and respond to materials and materiality.
Themes
I am currently working on a series of larger bronze pieces, exploring ideas of Tangata Te Tiriti, and the potential for partnership between tangata whenua and tauiwi, people new to Aotearoa. This is an enriching journey for me, as I explore the nature of being tauiwi myself, learning about tikanga issues and forms, and the implications for my own responses to the natural environment.
A previous theme (2021) was a somewhat whimsical idea about the redemption of humankind (after a history of environmental abusing), by the natural world in our journey after dying. The works have a dreamlike quality as souls find themselves journeying by boat into the underworld, under the guidance and stewardship of spirit creatures.
Past work has explored ideas about our experience of time and memory, while my recent making has focuses on our place in the natural world and the presence of the unseen.
Urban living can desensitise us to the patterns, subtleties, dynamics and nuances of nature. The perception that managing our environment (landscaping, occupying, building upon it) is evolutionarily advanced, leads us to think of ourselves as higher beings. Creatures have become categorised, analysed, discovered, accounted for, reinforcing the sense of the world of ‘other’, and us as keepers.
Embedded in us is a desire to know our position in the larger scheme of things – what some would loosely call a ‘spiritual’ identifying. It could be said that scientific thinking, empiricism and material thinking, causes our perceptions of ‘out there / other’, to be skewed towards this analytic mode, losing the profundity of being aware of our place, in their world.
Exhibitions
2024 / 25 Large mixed media proposal accepted for the Sculpture in the Gardens event, Auckland Botanic Gardens. https://www.sculptureinthegardens.nz/artists-announced
2023 / 24 Auckland Botanic Gardens. Gallery Show. Bronzes.
2023 Sculpture On Shore. Inside Exhibition. November. Three bronzes.
2023 NorthArt Members Exhibition 10 June - 15 July. Three bronzes.
2022 Drawing Together Exhibition. Lakehouse Gallery, Takapuna. 13 November - 2 December. Three bronzes and one drawing.
2022 Waitakere Arts Trust 35th Arts Exhibition. 3-11 September. Three pieces about the impact of colonisation on Aotearoa fauna.
• Sculpture / Ceramic / Assemblage Award Third Prize. Bronze piece: Tory. Wellington, 1839.
2022 NZ Art Show. Wellington. 2-4 June. Six bronzes about the impact of colonisation on Aotearoa fauna.
2021 Benevolence. Auckland ArtWeek, Highwic House, Newmarket. Cancelled due to Covid.
2019 Nature's Voice Exhibition. NorthArt, Auckland. Bronzes
2018 Kitchen Artefacts. Whittle Show. Auckland. Mixed media
2012 Piwakawaka Cat-toy. Individual piece. Narrow Neck, Auckland. Mixed media
2011 Songs in Paradise (Lost) Individual piece. Bronze and wood.
2010 Unwitting Collusion. Exhibition. NorthArt, Auckland. Bronze and steel.
2009 Avian Architecture. Exhibition. NorthArt, Auckland. Graphite drawings.
2008 Presence of Wairua Tapu. Individual woven feather piece.
2006 Sculpture in Easter Exhibition, Birkenhead. Etched glass
2006 E hara tenei i te korowai (this is not a cloak). Individual woven feather piece.
2005 Pro-portion. Exhibition. Auckland. Mixed media
2004 Support designer for a Proposal for Hyde Park London World War 2, NZ Memorial
2004 Staff Exhibition, AUT. Drawings.
2003 Memory To Artefact. Master of Arts Exhibition, AUT. Masters final exhibition.
2003 Staff Exhibition, AUT. Mixed media.
2001 Points of Reference. Staff exhibition, AUT
1999 Time Dancers. Installation. Science and Technology Foyer, AUT. Mixed media - screen printed acrylic and copper sheet, cast resin, steel, electric motors.
Qualifications / Employment
Master of Arts (Art and Design), Auckland University of Technology
Post-grad Diploma Secondary Teaching
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland
Senior Lecturer, Communication Design, Auckland University of Technology. 1993 - 2020
Course Co-Creator, Bachelor of Themed Environment Design, DETAO Masters Academy, Shanghai.
Secondary Art and Art History Teacher, Upper Hutt College / Lynfield College. Head of Art, Takapuna Grammar. Eight years.