Stuart Laird

Stuart began painting as a sideline when he was a graduate student in Canada but has had no formal education in art. After returning to New Zealand he first exhibited a painting in 1971 in the Young Contemporaries Exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery. After that he became involved in education for many years, taking up welded steel sculpture around 1990 and exhibiting at exhibitions in Manukau and Cambridge. In the last few years Stuart became increasingly interested in painting again, working in acrylics on paper and on canvas and also with printing on a large format on aluminium. The concept he is particularly interested in at the moment is that of two dimensional sculpture which may sound paradoxial but which involves painting completely connected shapes, with a particular emphasis on the balance between positive and negative flat space. Stuart takes his inspiration from many sources, particularly from the realm of metaphysical entities and objects in the world around us from this point of view. He is particularly interested in movement and flux and attempt to use colour and shape to show movement in a mental world. Stuart's work is influenced by both his European and New Zealand experiences and also by his Buddhist outlook as to the true face of reality.