Shadows & Reflections - Don Service & Dr Suits
What happens when we bring the urban art of Don Service and Dr Suits together? Depth of shadow, enticing reflection and a compelling combination of real material and style. The Gallery is preparing to show new works from these two Christchurch based talents. A key part of what makes them both exciting artists is the journey and approach they each take in crafting, creating and making their work.
Here’s a quick read on who Don Service & Dr Suits are…
Don Service
Don Service comes from a family of makers, a tradition that has informed his artistic path. He has made a career using his hands and imagination as an artist, designer and technician for nearly two decades.
Don draws on various experiences and environments in his practice. His work, starting from drawings in notebooks, is realised through a range of technical means, often hand-rendered over time with intricate and balanced detail.
Don’s creations are inspired by the natural world. Clean, organic and tactile forms echo the precision of nature’s design. His artistic approach embraces the distinct qualities of the various woods, metals, resins, zinc primers and enamels, and the quirks, challenges and possibilities are as important as the initial design concept.
With an inquisitive nature and his technical ability, Don Service exemplifies the ‘artist as craftsman’, inspired by the natural world and the act of making.
Dr Suits
Dr Suits, born Nathan Ingram, has a background that spans fashion, graffiti, graphic design, street art and large-scale muralism.
His work is borne of the urban environment, both in form and material, from paper, concrete and glass, to the angular forms of street markings and dynamic sprays of graffiti.
Dr Suits’ latest body of work introduces a new elegance and subtlety, with the adoption of glass bringing new qualities. An associate, Dr Woods, writes that “the pristine panes have invited more subtle colour palettes, with pastel pinks, soft yellows and minty greens, applied in smooth, flat sprays of aerosol, creating a contrast with the exposed sheen of the glass.”
Dr Suits is fascinated by the process of repetition and subtle experimentation to ultimately reach new destinations. His work reflects an ongoing search for the ungraspable, a struggle between the chaotic and the designed, much like the reality of the constantly changing environment surrounding us.
If these short artist bio’s have piqued your interest, we invite you to see their work in person at the Art Bureau Gallery in Auckland.
Shadows & Reflections Art Exhibition. Featuring the art of Don Service and Dr Suits.
Exhibition is on at the Art Bureau Gallery now. View through the week during normal gallery hours (10am to 4pm), or on weekends by appointment. Exhibition ends Friday 3rd September.
