No Go

24 September - 19 October 2019

Cyclists appear determined to ride out of the red circle of prohibition, small eager dogs strain as the leash against the strong red diagonal insisting ‘No Go!’ in this latest series of Signs works by master expressive painter Philip Trusttum. His viewpoint is typically skewed, with the signs viewed from oblique angles, a sense of squashed space, making everyday street language into something strange and disruptive, a push back against authority. Of the first Signs works exhibited in 2016, reviewer Edward Hanfling observed: ‘One registers the sensation of fleeting glimpses, as if from someone actually riding a bike, of movement and shifting qualities of light, fragments and ruptures, glances down, and things suddenly looming close… ...Trusttum’s paintings are different from many other forms of contemporary art in that they are so damned delicious.’ - Art New Zealand issue 164

An evolution of Trusttum’s ‘signs’ series pushing back against all the bans… The first exhibition of these new works from 2016-2018, inspired initially by all the signs around Christchurch during the rebuild.