The filmmakers embark on a journey through four seasons with Grahame by way of illuminating conversations, experiences of his art and, the landscapes that inspire him.

WORK IN PROGRESS

CREATIVE TEAM

Filmmaker / Director: BRUCE FOSTER

Creative Producer / Interviewer: GREGORY O’BRIEN

Interviewer: KATE DE GOLDI

Composer: FELIX BORNHOLDT

BACKGROUND

While at Elam School of Fine Arts I remember seeing an unforgettable sequence of paintings during an art history class: The Human Condition by Rene Magritte, Piazza d’Italia by Giorgio de Chirco, and Behind Stans by Grahame Sydney. Each of these works convey something of the mysteries of place and each has had a profound influence on my way of seeing.

Forty years later I met Grahame. At his invitation, Kate and I took up residence at Henderson House in Alexandra. I quickly became captivated by Central Otago: the colour palettes of each season, falling snow, spaceship clouds, the tussock, the thyme, the rosehips, craggy schist tors, the ever changing light on the Dunstan, Hawkdun, and Old Man Ranges.

I became intrigued by Grahame and his art too, his fierce almost primitive connection to place. His paintings, though seemingly rooted in specific locations — mountains, hills, plains, with relics of human endeavour and habitation — are imbued with layers of multiple meanings. They’re like character studies or self-portraits.

I learnt how Grahame tore up the fine art market rule book and struck out on his own. Eschewing the ebbs and flow of art movements he paints what he chooses to. As a boy he decided he wanted to be Vermeer, and has pursued that ambition with a single minded determination.

Grahame is a great storyteller, has an acute memory and is disarmingly candid. He is in short, a terrific subject for a documentary. There’s a suitcase of childhood drawings and family photo albums to delve into.

Towards the end of our year in Central, Kate and I shot several interviews with Grahame from which to make a pilot. We’re now ready to begin filming.

BRUCE FOSTER

I spoke with Grahame Sydney on the phone a year or two before we actually met in person. A few days previously I had discussed his recently published book GRAHAME SYDNEY PAINTINGS 1974-2014 with Kathryn Ryan on National Radio. One  of the points I remember making in the interview was that Grahame's art needed to be thought of as a vital and central component in contemporary New Zealand art. While Grahame might identify as a loner, an outsider, sui generis, his art is an important and powerful presence in the imaginative life of this nation.

Importantly, I think, his art raises lots of questions. In an era characterised by new media, digitised reality and the sound bite, here is a creative vision that is thoroughly uncompromising, that is exacting and both physically and mentally demanding of its maker. Grahame's art makes much contemporary art practice seem uncommitted, half-baked, and lacking in both vision and sincerity. In this regard, you could say that his art lays down a challenge to practitioners in every media.

It doesn't really matter what is happening elsewhere in the art world. A Grahame Sydney painting is its own world, as the artist is his own man. Grahame Sydney has his own manner of painting and also a manner of being — away from the limelight, in the contemplative quiet of the Cambrian Valley. The work, and the artist himself, speak eloquently about the Central Otago region, what he values most about it, and also what threatens it.

In 2018, my wife Jenny Bornholdt and I lived in the Henderson House, Alexandra. During that year and since we have travelled the length and breadth of Central with Grahame — both on — and off-road. His eye and his mind have never been sharper. He has never been painting better than he is at the present time. Hence the timeliness of this documentary film — a project which will capture something of the vitality and enduring quality of his life's work, ongoing.

GREGORY O’BRIEN