WATCH THE EXHIBITION VIDEO HERE

“I have realized that my studio doesn’t let in much sunlight — this giving an explanation as to why I can’t stop painting in yellow. I am simply trying to paint the sun.”
Ruby Wilkinson, Monday 2 May 2022

Ruby Wilkinson’s first solo exhibition with Jhana Millers Gallery Sun room is an ode to heliophiles: sunseeking somethings and someones. Ruby's once-saturnine hues — dark browns and deep reds — have gradually given way to tones lighter, more ebullient in character: forest greens, light browns and golden-yellows, the last of which make several of her paintings appear to glow from within.

Ruby views these new paintings as an orchestra, an ensemble of feeling. This ensemble of feeling, owes as much to shifts in colour as it does to her painterly gestures, now more open and freer than in previous bodies of work. The older forms of the last few years have loosened to the point of formlessness, giving these new paintings an irrepressible immediacy and spontaneity. Some consist of wisps of overlapping brushstrokes, others slanting swirls or open shapes resembling the letter D; all have been made using the artist’s favourite brush, now worn down to a bristly nub.

Ruby is a recent Fine Arts graduate from Massey University, Wellington and won the New Zealand Paint and Printmaking Award earlier in 2022. Her exhibition will be accompanied by a text from Tendai Mutambu and a video by Fraser Walker.