(1949 – )

Henry Symonds

Contemporary
Overview

Henry Symonds has been closely involved with the broader Art Community both as a practicing artist and educator for more than half a century.

He has exhibited his paintings and drawings extensively and has works in public and private collections in South Africa, New Zealand and many other parts of the world.

He retired as the Director Academic of the Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design in 2020 and divides his time between New Zealand and South Africa where he continues to teach, pursue various scholarly interests and spend time in his studio.

Education

1999
MFA, Elam School of Art, University of Auckland, New Zealand (First Class Honors).

1979 
MA (Art Education), Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.

1969-1973 
BA (Art) and Senior Teachers’ Diploma, University of Cape Town.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions:

2015
Matisse considered and Abandoned, Otago School of Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand.

2016
Matisse considered, Auckland Arts Trust, Pah Homestead, Auckland.

2021-2023
Exhibitions at Form Gallery, Auckland.

Group Exhibitions:

2015-2019 
Group shows, Dawid Ras Gallery, Gauteng, South Africa.

2021 
Form Gallery Whitecliffe, Pride Group Exhibition, Pride Festival, Auckland.

2019
Art Associates, Grey Gallery, Auckland with Rosemary Theunisen.

2018 and 2019
Randolph Stre
et Gallery, Auckland.

Juried Shows:

2015 and 2016
Wallace Arts Awards finalist.

Research and Studio Practice:

2022-2024 
Drawings which interrogate conventional and received notions of botanical illustration

2015-2024 
Exploration of studio objects and interactions as subjects and metaphors in late modernist practice.This includes a consideration of Still Life focusing on personal, collected artefacts as an appropriate field for cultural, historical and geographical speculation.

2020-2021
Lockdown Project, re-engaging with Interlocutions (2002-2013), focusing on the politics and processes of translation and cultural interaction. (and in this particular iteration ‘isolation’). I intend my ‘Interlocutions’ to translate or speak between the digital and the traditional, the decorative as decoration or coded narrative, the figurative and the abstract, the formal and the expressive. From one culture to another, one medium to another, one language to another, one place of being to another.

2013-2019
The Prodigal Returns, a series interacting with Vladimir Tretchikoff’s Chinese Girl (1953), ,) its changing status in a postcolonial and globalized world and its elevation from kitsch to controversial cultural symbol in Post Apartheid South Africa.

2014-2016
The Piano Lesson/Matisse considered and Abandoned, a series of large format paintings extending and responding to the dialogue from the previous series.

Current Theoretical Research:
Focus on Postcolonial theory, specifically around Settler, Diasporic, and Immigrant Cultures; intersections between Queer and Post-Postcolonial/Global issues; and the impact of Popular Culture on multicultural educational environments.

External Evaluation and Reviewing:

2021, 2022, 2023 
External examiner for MFA Candidates, Otago School of Art, Dunedin, New Zealand.

2023-2024
Judge, Waimarino Art Awards, Rahiti, New Zealand

2012-2020
Independent Monitor for various graduate programs at Otago Polytechnic.

Publications and Papers:

2021
Editorial Board member of
Scope, Otago School of Art.

2016 
Paper titled
The Prodigal Returns, Otago School of Art, Graduate Seminar, Dunedin.

Featured Artwork