Behind the Fortress Walls

Grahame Sydney is associated with Central Otago and meticulously rendered landscapes of ochre hills and big skies. He is at once a celebrated and a marginal figure in New Zealand art. His paintings are sought after by collectors, they have shaped how many people see Central Otago (even though they are composite and invented scenes rather than actual views), and he was knighted in 2021. Yet his work is rarely curated into significant exhibitions of New Zealand art or included in major anthologies. This may be because, as Sydney himself attests, his paintings are conservative in style and methods, including the anachronistic egg tempera medium that he has frequently preferred. Also, he has refused to be part of a dealer gallery stable since 1995. Aspects of Sydney’s career remain seldom discussed, such as his contributions to the now troublesome tradition of the nude, and connections with other New Zealand artists. These, along with Sydney’s formative influences and personal philosophy, are tackled in the following interview.

Edward Hanfling: I presume you’ve seen Jane Campion’s film The Power of the Dog? There seemed to be a lot of ‘Grahame Sydneys’ in it. There are expansive views of hills and sky, and at the beginning of the film, the main cowboy character walks past a series of windows, and we see him from each window that he walks past, which I thought was reminiscent of some of your early works.

Grahame Sydney: Well, Jane sat exactly where you’re sitting, and said that it was the paintings that gave her the idea that this would be the right location to make the film. I’ve always thought the Central Otago landscape was made for film. The camera loves it. Big camera and big screen. Paintings condense it. It’s nice to see what Jane did with it. The different seasons and atmospherics of this semi-arid centre of the South Island—it’s enjoyable stuff when you’re on the other end of the camera. And she did a lot of CGI intervention—the sort of thing that I do, and any