Allen Maddox
1948-2000
Born in England, lived in New Zealand
Allen Maddox is remembered as one of New Zealand’s finest abstract expressionist painters. Born in Liverpool, England, Maddox migrated to New Zealand in his early teens. He studied at Ilam School of Fine Arts in the late 1960s, where he made acquaintance with fellow painters Philip Clairmont and Tony Fomison. The notable trio became well-known as a tightly interwoven group of hard living, richly talented artists. Maddox exhibited throughout the country from the mid-1970s until his passing in 2000. Despite his relatively short career, Maddox made a contribution of enduring significance to New Zealand art. His works are held in notable public collections throughout the country, including Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa, The Chartwell Collection, and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
Maddox explored tension between structure and expressiveness in his paintings. This is perhaps most evident in the distinctive X motif, which he used repeatedly. The X is both structural and gestural. It could be read as a device to break up and analyse the picture plane. Yet, in Maddox’s hands, it is also expressive, a rebellion against strictures. Sometimes coupled with rectangular grids, the artist painted his X marks with vibrant palettes and vividly gestural brush marks. The results are mesmerising, visceral, and unlike anything else in New Zealand art. Prolific throughout his life, Maddox created an entire oeuvre using this distinctive motif.
Notable writer and curator Alice Hutchinson described Maddox’s X as, “employed often on its own or as a multiplied system within an intuitively constructed grid; a flexible, improvised, non-symmetrical, oscillating, rhythmic grid.” [1] The X could be seen as both constraint and artistically liberating; by restricting subject matter, the artist is free to focus on colour, paint application, gesture, and expression. Maddox found an endless stream of possibilities within the use of this simple device.
Maddox was idiosyncratic, and wholly committed to his art. Hutchinson quotes an anonymous friend of the artist, “Within the painting itself there is a high degree of intelligence and intellectualism […]. He didn’t play by anyone else’s rules... or live for approval.” [2] Taken by a bohemian worldview, Maddox lived a life through painting, creating a rich artistic legacy that remains insightful and vital to this day.
Gow Langsford Gallery has represented Allen Maddox since 1987 and continues to represent his estate.
[1] Allen Maddox: Systems of Disorder : Log 15: The X Issue - A publication from the Physics Room
[2] Ibid.
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Summer Paintings
Group Exhibition 17 Jan - 10 Feb 2024 Auckland CityGow Langsford is pleased to present Summer Paintings. This exhibition presents a selection of paintings from six painters – Dale Frank, Séraphine Pick, Judy Millar, Ruth Ige, Karl Maughan, and Allen Maddox. The works are eclectic in style, ranging from the Maughan’s meticulously detailed 1997 gardenscape Ashurst through to Millar’s mesmerising Rows for Gertrude Stein, a monochromatic gestural painting from 2002. Each of the paintings demonstrate the skill, flair, and distinctive vision of the artist behind them.Read more -
Allen Maddox
19 Apr - 13 May 2023 Auckland CityThis exhibition features works by Allen Maddox from the mid-1970s through to the 1990s. It was a prolific period for the artist, whereby his chosen motif was first explored and then further developed.Read more -
Electric Thought Patterns
Allen Maddox 11 Mar - 4 Apr 2020The works of Allen Maddox have an undeniable cohesion through the use of the cross motif; a symbol that became synonymous with his practice. Electric Thought Patterns, an exhibition of previously unseen works, displays how Maddox was able to use the seemingly restrictive formal vocabulary of the cross and grid and meld two affinities of formalist expressionism: one, the controlled, often aggressive gesture (straight, intersecting lines); the other, a free and organic movement of paint. The works exhibited are a cross-section of his career from the 1970s to the late 1990s; each work rich with colour, texture and emotion.Read more -
Almost Blue
Group Exhibition 20 Feb - 16 Mar 2019 Auckland CityAssociated with the sea and sky that surround us, the colour blue has seduced artists and their audiences for millennia. Unlike red or yellow ochre, the blue we see day to day cannot be turned into a pigment - instead artists have turned to rare and precious sources to create the colour. The captivating colour has seen artists from Raphael to Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky to Yves Klein dedicate periods of their practices to studies in blue. This summer, Gow Langsford Gallery applies a blue filter to present Almost Blue, an exhibition which brings together works by international heavy hitter Anish Kapoor alongside prominent Australasian artists including Dale Frank and Max Gimblett.Read more -
Cross Rhythms
Allen Maddox 8 Feb - 3 Mar 2017 Lorne StreetAllen Maddox (1948-2000) is remembered as being one of New Zealand’s finest exponents of abstract expressionism. His work, spanning over three decades, investigates the tensions between structure and gesture, primarily utilising the motifs of grids and crosses.Read more