If you speak for the Wolf,
speak against him as well.
Michael Greaves
Michael Greaves: If you speak for the Wolf,
speak against him as well.
Olga Gallery Dunedin
August 23- September 12
2024
“I have been thinking a lot lately about relationships, on, of and in between things...”
Michael Greaves states this casually when probed about the intention and explanation of his most recent
collection of paintings exhibited at Olga Gallery in Dunedin, New Zealand (August 23-September 12,
2024). This response is not unexpected from the painter, who for much of his career has shifted modes,
explored multiple painterly outcomes, and will often delve into definitions of his practice that sit more in
an idea of meta painting.
To put this into context, painting today communicates in ways that adopts and co-opts historical motif
and trope, reusing and utilising symbolic references to disrupt the iconographic programmes that have
served paintings dominance as a meaning carrier in the premodern years. It is here where this body of
work sits, drawing on traditional modes of making, embedded in the landscape genre, a sublime
coastline, a kind of beauty that acts as a stage support for a selected collection of objects and spheres,
suspended but in focus, disruptive in their playfulness, seriously proposing an ambiguity and
unpredictability of meaning.
These spheres, lit dramatically from a same or similar light source could be read as a stand in for people,
hermetically sealed, sometimes unformed or becoming, close, almost touching but never merging. The
eternal existential question of belonging, or aloneness in this world are rendered with Greaves’ intuitive
modulations of bronzes, greens and matte fawn like colours. Semi a work consisting of two such floating
spheres, one bronze/yellow atop a cadmium red/orange push hard towards the front of the painting mimic
a colon, a punctuation mark in language, typically used to introduce a sentence that clarifies, explains, or
elaborates on the sentence that came before it. A semicolon, on the other hand, is typically used to
simply connect two related sentences of equal importance. The tile of the work then is both descriptive
and elusive, proposing a connection, a relation, but also planting a seed of an expanded interpretation.
Titling has always been a consideration for Greaves, in the individual painting titles and in the collective
show titles. Recent shows such as we are not strong enough for rivers and stars (Melanie Rodger Gallery.
Auckland, New Zealand, February 2023) and Sullivan’s Objects (Five Walls. Melbourne, Australia,
November 2022), or the last exhibition here at Olga also in 2022 The Promise and the Fall all allude to how
the show is to be interpreted and read as a whole. Here is no different. When you speak for the Wolf,
speak against him as well hints at the duality inherent in any act of depiction, acknowledging the
subjective nature of interpretation. The paintings here, then, are not intended to convey a pre-
determined, fully formed idea to a passive, detached viewer. Rather this new work, a mature and resolved
collection, delivers an allegory in a non-literal sense and a proposal of a meditative pause, a moment of
repose to contemplate the weight and balance of a oneness and singularity of life.
This body of work marks a new and exciting turn in the painter's career.
James Leigh van Roche. August 2024
speak against him as well.
Olga Gallery Dunedin
August 23- September 12
2024
“I have been thinking a lot lately about relationships, on, of and in between things...”
Michael Greaves states this casually when probed about the intention and explanation of his most recent
collection of paintings exhibited at Olga Gallery in Dunedin, New Zealand (August 23-September 12,
2024). This response is not unexpected from the painter, who for much of his career has shifted modes,
explored multiple painterly outcomes, and will often delve into definitions of his practice that sit more in
an idea of meta painting.
To put this into context, painting today communicates in ways that adopts and co-opts historical motif
and trope, reusing and utilising symbolic references to disrupt the iconographic programmes that have
served paintings dominance as a meaning carrier in the premodern years. It is here where this body of
work sits, drawing on traditional modes of making, embedded in the landscape genre, a sublime
coastline, a kind of beauty that acts as a stage support for a selected collection of objects and spheres,
suspended but in focus, disruptive in their playfulness, seriously proposing an ambiguity and
unpredictability of meaning.
These spheres, lit dramatically from a same or similar light source could be read as a stand in for people,
hermetically sealed, sometimes unformed or becoming, close, almost touching but never merging. The
eternal existential question of belonging, or aloneness in this world are rendered with Greaves’ intuitive
modulations of bronzes, greens and matte fawn like colours. Semi a work consisting of two such floating
spheres, one bronze/yellow atop a cadmium red/orange push hard towards the front of the painting mimic
a colon, a punctuation mark in language, typically used to introduce a sentence that clarifies, explains, or
elaborates on the sentence that came before it. A semicolon, on the other hand, is typically used to
simply connect two related sentences of equal importance. The tile of the work then is both descriptive
and elusive, proposing a connection, a relation, but also planting a seed of an expanded interpretation.
Titling has always been a consideration for Greaves, in the individual painting titles and in the collective
show titles. Recent shows such as we are not strong enough for rivers and stars (Melanie Rodger Gallery.
Auckland, New Zealand, February 2023) and Sullivan’s Objects (Five Walls. Melbourne, Australia,
November 2022), or the last exhibition here at Olga also in 2022 The Promise and the Fall all allude to how
the show is to be interpreted and read as a whole. Here is no different. When you speak for the Wolf,
speak against him as well hints at the duality inherent in any act of depiction, acknowledging the
subjective nature of interpretation. The paintings here, then, are not intended to convey a pre-
determined, fully formed idea to a passive, detached viewer. Rather this new work, a mature and resolved
collection, delivers an allegory in a non-literal sense and a proposal of a meditative pause, a moment of
repose to contemplate the weight and balance of a oneness and singularity of life.
This body of work marks a new and exciting turn in the painter's career.
James Leigh van Roche. August 2024
Michael Greaves, Second Study for a Monument. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 355x410mm. Framed. 2024.
"If You Speak For the Wolf, Speak Against Him as Well", Michael Greaves
The latest body of work from Michael Greaves, now on display at Olga, marks a new direction for the artist.
This is by no means a surprise; Greaves has changed the apparent direction of his artistic style on numerous occasions throughout his career, the changes showing the versatility of the artist while simultaneously appearing as a wilful subversion of a normal career trajectory in the arts. These are no mere developments on a theme, but are volte-face manoeuvres, explorations of new areas for the artist.
The latest display of work is firmly centred on the surreal and metaphysical, stage sets with blank spheres set against oceanic backgrounds. The spheres as harshly lit, their ominous enigmatic forms drawing to mind the work of both de Chirico and Magritte in their presentation of disruptive solids within a seemingly innocent, non-threatening backdrop. Features within this background seem to provide clues: a palm tree, a gate post, even motion blur as if the painting is of a view from a moving vehicle catch the imagination, as do the works’ cryptic titles. The pieces become metaphors for the ungraspable essence of existence, of the chasm between the seen and unseen, the experienced and the intuited.
James Dignan, Otago Daily Times, August 29 2024
The Grey
Acrylic and oil on canvas. 690x795mm. Framed. 2024.
Michael Greaves, If you speak for the Wolf, speak against him as well. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 1006X1290MM . Framed. 2024.
