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Painter Karl Maughan’s 2024 favourites and his Pōhutukawa fringed paintings of summer

From Culture 101, 1:19 pm on 20 December 2024

 

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Installation view of Karl Maughan exhibition East Coast at Gow Langsford Gallery Photo: Sam Hartnett

The Pōhutukawa - our Christmas tree - once bountifully fringed the West Coast north of Taranaki, and the East Coast north of Tairāwhiti Gisborne. 

Karl Maughan's Matakana (2024), oil on canvas

Karl Maughan's Matakana (2024), oil on canvas Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Gow Langsford

While now found even further south, these trees with their stunning gold tipped crimson blooms remain synonymous with summer on the Northern East Coast.   

They are there, at the end of the garden, before the vivid blues of sea and sky in East Coast, a new body of paintings from one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most beloved painters, Karl Maughan. East Coast is at Gow Langsford Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland until 24 December

Bright and florid with garden blooms, these paintings sing spectacularly of the season and the interaction between nature and culture, garden and coast. 

Karl Maughan joins Culture 101’s Fast Favourites to share some of his cultural loves of 2024.  

 

Karl Maughan in studio

Karl Maughan in studio Photo: Tobias Krauss