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JOHN REYNOLDS – The Butterfly Effect – 12 Aug-5 Sept 2025

The Butterfly Effect…

‘There is the galactic time of the stars, there is the geological time of mountains, there is the lifetime of a butterfly.’   John Berger

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.

The Butterfly Effect, a concept from chaos theory and weather modelling, refers to the idea that small changes in one system can lead to large effects in another.

Reynolds wishes to summon not only that dynamic as a reference to our fragile world’s climate vulnerability, but also as a precarious analogy for the pursuit of an overwhelming flux at the heart of his recent works.

Philip Guston spoke of wanting a less knowing relation to what he painted, and adopted Valery’s notion that a bad poem is one that ‘vanishes into meaning.’

Perhaps Reynolds here pursues Nabokov’s desire to ‘pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation?

The Butterfly Effect #2, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 1400 x 1000mm, $11,000    The Butterfly Effect #3, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 1400 x 1000mm, $11,000    The Butterfly Effect #6, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 1400 x 1000mm, $11,000    The Butterfly Effect #7, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 1400 x 1000mm, $11,000.   The Butterfly Effect #12, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 1200 x 900mm, $9000    The Butterfly Effect #8, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 1200 x 900mm, $9000    The Butterfly Effect #9, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 1200 x 900mm, $9,000    The Butterfly Effect #11, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 1200 x 900mm, $9000

The Butterfly Effect #14, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 500 x 600mm, $3600  The Butterfly Effect #15, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 500 x 600mm, $3600  The Butterfly Effect #16, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 400 x 300mm, $2500  The Butterfly Effect #17, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 400 x 300mm, SOLD  The Butterfly Effect #18, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 400 x 300mm, $2500  The Butterfly Effect #19, by John Reynolds, 2025, acrylic and oil paint marker on canvas, 400 x 300mm, $2500

John Reynolds lives and works in Auckland and over the past three decades has established a reputation as a painter, a drawer, a worker or words and an installation artist. He began his career painting large abstract colour fields, slowly evolving into structural text-based imagery. His work is rich with literary, religious, art historical and architectural allusions and ranges in scale from the intimate to epic. Reynold’s paintings, drawings and prints utilise materials in an expressive manner that moves between sensuality and austerity.  Sometimes they present a singular idea, stripped back, more recently ideas and imagery are overlaid or collected together in such a way that the association between elements is poetic, not fixed. His work is suggestive and evades locked meaning. It has the fluidity of the human mind.

Reynolds has exhibited widely including major exhibitions at the Auckland Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Tauranga Art Gallery, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery, Gus Fisher Gallery, Adam Art Gallery, Sydney Biennale and more. He has been the recipient for many awards including : Montana Lindauer in 1988, Visual Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of New Zealand in 1993, Visa Gold Art Award in 1994, was twice a finalist in the prestigious Walters Art Prize in both 2002 and 2008. Reynolds is the recipient of a Laureate Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand and a member of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery Foundation.