Wayne Seyb

Wayne Seyb's vigorous oil paintings capture the raw energy of the New Zealand landscape, an expression of feeling of place rather than a literal interpretation.

He typically uses intense colour applied boldly and thickly, in sweeping strokes to express his response the mountains, rivers and coastline of the South Island.

Seyb has also worked on woodcuts throughout his career, and these prints have the typical energy, immediacy and expressiveness of his paintings, with an additional directness which derives from the precise demands of the medium.

 

Recent Work 

Dramatic, uplifting then brooding, magical, reeling with history - the intensity of the Fiordland is almost experienced first-hand in viewing the vigorous new paintings of Wayne Seyb.

His new suite of oils and watercolours, Spirit on the Water, emerged from a unique artistic excursion into Dusky and Doubtful Sound into remote Fiordland last October, at the invitation of the Dunedin-based Caselberg Trust .

On board Ruth and Lance Shaw�s yacht Breaksea Girl, Wayne Seyb stowed rolled canvasses, paper, paints and inks, and rose around dawn each day to claim a place near the bow to work. He worked directly onto canvas and paper to capture first impressions of the essence and power of Fiordland in oils, and its more intimate and magical moments in watercolour.

Seyb arrived two days early, to attune himself to the landscape, then worked each day on deck until dark. Sometimes the rain would wash out paintings, sometimes it contributed to them such as the atmospheric, abstracted Snug Cove II.

He researched both Sounds extensively before the trip, and that history � of saving the kakapo, of astronomers, of early European explorers and of stories of a lost Maori tribe � informed his paintings. Pickersgill Harbour, for instance, recalls Captain James Cook�s stopover to take astronomical readings, mooring the ship Resolutio to the very tree depicted in this painting, from the track cut by Cook into the bush. Seyb references that history with an image of the carved prow of the Resolution, a fierce dog�s head, depicted in the lower left of the painting.

�You have to have an imaginative hook to look at the landscape because otherwise it is just the picturesque,� he says. �I like to look at it as something symbolic. It gives a more symbolic edge to the landscape which is what inspires me to paint.�

Intense work in the studio over the following three months produced the final suite including oil paintings, three watercolours, and a work which gives an intimate and personal view - For the Care of Small Birds, of a South Island robin which sat beside him as he worked one day. The magical nature of the water spouts which skim across the water inspired the title painting of the show, Spirit on the Water, an experience which caught his artist�s eye for the way the spouts slice the horizontal layers of earth and sky.

Other works available

We have a small selection of Fiordland landscapes in watercolour, unframed, at $1800 in addition to the very beautifully portrayed Waterfall I & II. Also a series of striking woodcuts priced from $500. Please enquire.

 

New work includes several small paintings of the Marlborough Sounds - the Kenepuru and Queen Charlotte Sounds. Beautifully expressive, textural paintings capturing the light on water and land.

More About the Artist 

Born in Temuka in 1961, Wayne Seyb studied formally for a year at Otago before leaving to pursue his individualist direction. He set up a co-operative gallery, Artattack, in 1981, and has since exhibited regularly in dealer and public galleries throughout New Zealand, and in Germany.

He first exhibited at Grove Mill in 1996 with JS Parker and John Madden and returned in 2004 and 2006 and now 2008 with very successful shows at The Diversion Gallery. Wayne Seyb has a strong following as a highly respected artist with a very individual voice, well respected in the New Zealand art scene.

He is best known for his expressive oil paintings, capturing the raw energy of landscape or an expression of feeling for his subject rather than a literal interpretation. His woodcuts also have a growing following among collectors, for their freshness, quirky take on life, references to literature and art history, and their affordability. We have a selection of woodcuts available from $500 each unframed, please enquire.

Wayne Seyb and his wife and children lived for a decade in Karitane near Dunedin, its landscape inspiring much of his painting. They moved to Christchurch in 1999, when the Port Hills, the Southern Alps and West Coast of the South Island have become a new field of inspiration, although Otago and Southland continue to feature strongly in his paintings.

 

Please contact us to confirm current prices: most prices are posted at the time of exhibition, and may be revised as the artists’ values increase.