Pale in Comparison
12-25 February
Black Door Gallery are pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by Gaen.
Drawing on the landscapes of his childhood—Hawkdun, the Southern Alps, and beyond—Gaen distils place into memory, light, and form.
Rendered in soft, nostalgic pastel palettes, the works reduce familiar terrains to their geometric essence: a single contour, a rising peak, a band of cresting light. In blocks of pure colour, these fragments are enough to conjure the feeling of a landscape rather than its likeness.
The paintings play with notions of near and far. Up close, they dissolve into abstraction; from a distance, they resolve into place. This shifting clarity mirrors the way we often understand the power of the landscapes we grew up in—most clearly when viewed from afar. The result is a quiet, reflective body of work: a gentle meditation on distance, memory, and belonging.
Come and enjoy Gaen’s contemporary reimagining of the New Zealand landscape through a cubist lens.
