Séraphine Pick

Séraphine Pick (born 23 May 1964, in Kawakawa, New Zealand) is a New Zealand painter. Pick has exhibited frequently at New Zealand public art galleries; a major survey of her work was organised and toured by the Christchurch Art Gallery in 2009–10.

Education

Pick graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury in 1988. In 1991 she completed a Diploma of Teaching at the Christchurch College of Education.

Career

Early in her career Pick was grouped with other Ilam graduates, such as Tony de Lautour, Shane Cotton, Peter Robinson, Saskia Leek and Bill Hammond under the title of the Pencilcase Painters, known for a painting style that evoked the doodlings of bored teenagers. Pick drew on many sources for the imagery in her painting, from pop culture magazines to pre-Renaissance paintings to naive art. Writing about her work of the 1990s, curator Lara Strongman notes that 'Pick frequently incorporated renditions of talismanic objects from her childhood (red boots, party dresses, paper-bag masks, iron bed-frames) in earlier works, leading her practice to be viewed misleadingly as autobiographical'. During both residencies she was able to produce bodies of work that 'built upon her past style and explored new challenges'. He continued:

If other contemporary artists unconsciously stay clear of the depiction of women for the fact that its overexploited, it leaves it to Pick to breed together imagery from fashion and art history in a hothouse, dreamily upsetting mythologies still inherent in our treatment of the female figure.

Reviewer James Dignan, writing of Tell Me More in the Otago Daily Times in 2010, described the development of Pick's work as moving [...] from ghostlike scratches on canvas to full-blooded figurative darkness [showing influences] from Bosch through Redon to Leonor Fini. Through it all, the subterranean undercurrents are a dominant thread, notably in the recent large crowd scenes and solitary figures surrounded by mental echoes of their physical surroundings.

In recent years, Pick has moved from painting the nightmare directly to implying it in a more intangible yet somehow more threatening way. A huge darkness is now present in many of the works – not an absence of light, but a presence of black, a darkness which clearly shows the influence of Goya.

In 2012 Pick produced paintings that were used as the basis for the opening credits for New Zealand director Jane Campion's BBC television series Top of the Lake.

In more recent years, Pick has turned to the internet for her source material for her paintings. Her 2013 exhibition Wankered Again at Michael Lett Gallery (works from which were shown in 2014 at the Ilam Campus Gallery in Christchurch) included paintings that drew on photographs of drunken teenagers that had been posted on the web.

In a 2015 interview the artist explained that she is not wedded to any one style or approach to painting:

I keep changing. I don't sit still for long. That's just me exploring painting really. There are just endless possibilities with it. I'm a figurative artist and there's just so many ways you can approach figuration, so I've always tried out lots of different things.

Exhibitions

1995 Unveiled, City Gallery Wellington 1997 Looking Like Someone Else, Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North 1998 Séraphine Pick: Scratching Skin, McDougall Art Annex, Dunedin Public Art Gallery 2008 Séraphine Pick, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch 2008 After Image, Mahara Gallery, Kapiti and Sarjeant Gallery 2009 Séraphine Pick, Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch 2009 -2010 Séraphine Pick: Tell Me More, Christchurch Art Gallery, City Gallery Wellington, Dunedin Public Art Gallery 2014 Séraphine Pick – Looking like someone else, Pataka Art + Museum, Porirua 2014 Séraphine Pick: Wankered, Ilam Campus Gallery, Christchurch 2015 Séraphine Pick: White Noise, The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 2017 Séraphine Pick: Cavewomen, Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin, 2019 Séraphine Pick: Corporeal, Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin, 2024 Summer Paintings. Group Exhibition, Gow Langsford, Auckland

Publications

Jon Bywater, Shadow play : recent paintings by Séraphine Pick, Auckland: Claybrook Gallery, 1994 Claire Regnault, Unveiled, Wellington: City Gallery Wellington, 1995 Séraphine Pick, Looking Like Someone Else, Palmerston North: Manawatu Art Gallery, 1997 Felicity Milburn, Séraphine Pick: Scratching Skin, Christchurch: McDougall Art Annex, 1998 Susan Ballard, Beyond the surface : Kim Pieters, Maryrose Crook, Séraphine Pick, Dunedin: Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2001 Felicity Milburn et al., Séraphine Pick, Christchurch: Christchurch Art Gallery, 2009 Mark Hutchins-Pond, Looking like someone else, Porirua: Pataka Art + Museum, 2014 Séraphine Pick: Wankered, Christchurch: Ilam Campus Gallery, 2014 Sian van Dyk, Megan Dunn, Seraphine Pick: White Noise, Lower Hutt: The Dowse Art Museum, 2015

Reviews

Peter Simpson, 'Reverie and phantasmagoria : recent paintings by Séraphine Pick', Art New Zealand, no 91, Winter 1999, pp 56–59, 89 Mark Amery, 'The Culture Vulture: Séraphine Pick at Hamish McKay', The Dominion Post, 2007 Felicity Milburn, 'Assumed identities : the elusive paintings of Séraphine Pick', Takahe, issue 3, no 65, 2008 pp. 29–34 Lindsay Rabbitt, 'Imaginary Friends', NZ Listener, 31 May 2008 John Hurrell, 'From Understated Restraint To Histrionic Excess', Eye Contact, 2009 Edward Hanfling, 'Séraphine Pick: Torn up phrases', Art New Zealand, no 140, 2011 TJ McNamara, 'Dream-like visions that glow in the dark', New Zealand Herald, 2011 Mark Amery, 'Diverse & Copious Pick', Eye Contact, 2011 John Hurrell, 'The Pains (or Pleasures) of Inebriation', Eye Contact, 2013 Priscilla Pitts, 'Seraphine Pick White Noise', Art New Zealand, no 155, Spring 2015, p. 39

Residencies and awards

In 1994 Pick was the recipient of the Olivia Spencer Bower Award, and in 1995 she was the Rita Angus Artist in Residence in Wellington.

In 2013 Pick was the inaugural artist in residence at Scots College, Wellington.

Further information Stacey Wood, The Pick of the Bunch, The Dominion Post, 8 March 2010 Seraphine Pick interviewed by Lyn Freeman, 'Standing Room Only', Radio New Zealand National, 21 June 2015 Tom Cardy, Painter Seraphine Pick takes inspiration from the internet for her new show, The Dominion Post, 1 July 2015 Seraphine Pick interview, The Dowse Art Museum podcast, 6 August 2015 Frances Fellows, interview with Seraphine Pick about on 50th anniversary of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, 'Standing Room Only', Radio New Zealand National, 23 October 2016