Spanning five decades, Allegorical Journeys celebrates the vibrant artwork of Christchurch-born artist Philippa Blair (1945-2025) with works from the 1980s to those more recent. Characterised by motion, velocity, exploration, excavation and construction, Blair expands the realms of painting into dancing musical notations and imaginative vistas. Ex-pat New Zealand author Lita Barrie wrote of Blair: “Her allegorical journeys reflect the restless spirit of a pioneer who crosses internal and external boundaries to chart out new territories of the mind by exploring different worlds.”
These significant artworks too, have had extraordinary lives traveling the world in various exhibitions. Dancing Bear, 2009, was recently included in Sara Hughes’s exhibition ‘Colour Memories’ at Gow Langsford, Onehunga (2025), inspiring a new companion painting by the artist as a tribute; was featured in “Down Under Cover” in 2020 at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi; and in an exhibition curated by Peter Frank in Los Angeles a decade earlier.
With approximately 40 works, Allegorical Journeys provides glimpses into Blair’s journeys and artistic trajectories. The show opens with works on unstretched canvas from the 80s-90s. As Barrie suggested, these conjure “allegor[ies] of protective body covers, portable shelters, scrolls, sails, and banners with strong cultural resonances of the transitory, migratory atmosphere of isolated Pacific Islands… the body of the voyager embarking on journeys through time, across diverse civilizations and histories.” Included are six works from this period, including the feature, Head I (1987), a mixed-media work on cut, shaped and stitched canvas.
During the 80s-90s Blair also created many works on paper. Examples include Venezia II (1988), a vibrant oil referencing her love of place, and 8 intimate vellum & ink drawings on lined ‘manuscript-like’ paper, celebrating music and dance, two other loves in Blair’s life.
A move to California in 1995 gave rise to more dynamic compositions on stretched canvas. Considered to be representative of the two decades Blair spent living and working in the States, Dancing Bear (2009), a commanding work, utilizes diverse paint techniques and powerful diagonal lines that inject visual tension, speed and a lively sense of motion. A number of smaller works from this time are also included.
Blair returned to New Zealand in 2014. Glitter Tartan (2013), five stretched and cut canvases covered with pieces from tartan fabric and overlaid with tape, glitter, oil and spray paint, offers nostalgic references to a childhood spent in NZ’s South Island and possibly indicate her imminent return. This unique work is an example of Blair’s versatile polyptychs, where numbers and arrows marked on the rear denote alternative configurations, sometimes suggestive rather than prescriptive. Settling in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, likely inspired Minnie Street (2014), a quadriptych of small oils on canvas, and Landing Stripes (2015), perhaps referencing Blair’s joy as she touched down in New Zealand. Tartan Garden (2021), an oil and mixed-media diptych on canvas is typical of the layered and energetic works of the late 2010s and early 2020s utilizing many of Blair’s characteristic techniques- delicate drips to paint squeezed directly from the tube, pours, scraping, stencilling, and working from multiple directions.
Throughout her career, Blair continued to capture everyday yet poignant moments on small canvases. Primarily in oil, often with impasto, examples such as Windfall – Christchurch Autumn and her Vista Linda works are typically joyous.
While gestural painting has had a resurgence, Blair’s dynamic compositions on canvas with vibrant Pacific colour remain inimitable.
Lita Barrie, “Pacific Allegories,” Three from New Zealand: Philippa Blair, Christine Hellyar, Ralph Hotere, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California, 1990, p. 7.
Click on these links to see further Philippa Blair works – unstretched canvases, large & medium paintings, small paintings, vellum & ink drawings, goauche & watercolours.