The Water Project

EUAN MACLEOD

Born in Christchurch in 1956, Euan Macleod completed a Diploma of Fine Arts (Painting) at the University of Canterbury. Moving to Sydney in 1981, he held his first solo exhibition the following year at Watters Gallery, East Sydney. Just as his works are infused with landscapes from both his birthplace and his adopted home, throughout his career Macleod has exhibited on both sides of the Tasman. Since his Self-portrait; head like a hole won Australia’s most prestigious art prize, the Archibald Prize for Portraiture, in 1999, he has picked up numerous awards, including the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 2006 and the Gallipoli Prize (2009). Macleod is represented in public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and Christchurch Art Gallery. A monograph to accompany this exhibition, Euan Macleod—the painter in the painting, by curator/writer Gregory O’Brien, is published by Piper Press, Sydney. A touring survey exhibition of his work, Euan Macleod–Painter was opened at the Ashburton Art Gallery in October 2016.

‘Euan Macleod paints from the core of his being,’ writes O’Brien, ‘taking us into innermost regions of the human condition. His works explore states of youth and aging, the relationship between humanity and the environment, and the processes of memory and forgetting which shape both people and places.’