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PHILIP TRUSTTUM – At Work – 9 Sept-3 Oct 2025

This new exhibition of large paintings juxtaposes views of the working life; both inside and outside the studio. In one grouping, the artist converted the insistent thud of pile-driving that occurred just over his fence, into the impulse for a set of loose canvases in which monumental piles create vertical rhythms across flattened backgrounds. Drawing on Caravaggio he inserted small figures – workmen in hard hats and hi-vis vests – to rove strongly-coloured fields and activate the picture plane.

The other grouping shows tools-of-work closer to hand in Trusttum’s own studio. Palette knives at all angles in a bucket, daubed with evidence of previous use, fan from a low centre and reach towards the canvas edge. The palette itself, with his thumb firmly upon it, appears in another tri-colour work and is so large that it almost becomes an abstraction.

Trusttum’s eyes are open and everything he sees is potential subject matter. He brings to his work energetic freedom grounded in decades of experience and his clear enjoyment of pictorial invention yields paintings that are consistently exciting.

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This exhibition is dedicated to Lee Trusttum

24/02/2025, acrylic on canvas, 1820 x 1435mm, $18000 03/02/2025, acrylic on canvas, 1820 x 1530mm, $18000 (untitled), acrylic on canvas, 1830 x 1470mm, $18000
29/01/25, acrylic on canvas, 1820 x 1520mm, $18000 18/02/25, acrylic on canvas, 1820 x 1520mm, $18000 27/01/25, acrylic on canvas, 1820 x 1520mm, $18000
03/04/24, acrylic on canvas, 1385 x 1820mm, $18000 25/04/24, acrylic on canvas, 1350 x 1810mm, $17000 10/04/24, acrylic on canvas, 1420 x 1820mm, $18000

Philip Trusttum (born in 1940) is recognised as one of the major expressive painters of his generation, known particularly for his large works full of energy, colour, and vigour, inspired by the everyday world as he engages with it, whether politics, events, family, stories, and objects.

Philip Trusttum graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury in 1964, where he was taught by Rudolf Gopas, who was to prove a strong influence on the young artist, and through him became interested in expressionism. He was also to become a member of The Group an influential group of Canterbury artists whose members included Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston and Doris Lusk.

In 1967, Trusttum was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council scholarship for travel to develop his practice, though his initial overseas trip, to Australia, was met with disaster when many of his finished canvases were damaged in transit. Since then his travels have taken him to both North America and Europe.

Since the early 1970s Trusttum’s work has largely been inspired by everyday life experiences often worked into a semi-abstract form. His subject matter has ranged from house renovation to tennis, horses to Japanese masks and more recently portraits.

In 1984, Trusttum participated in ANZART at the Edinburgh Arts Festival. He has shown in Sydney, New York, and Melbourne, as well as in all New Zealand’s main centres. In 2000 he became only the second New Zealand artist to be awarded the prestigious Pollock Krasner Foundation grant. In the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Trusttum was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to art.