Nigel Brown - The Prodigal Son, Polyptych

Lot description

Oil on canvas - Signed & dated 1997 A letter from the artist to Paul & Kerry Barber reads: I’ve always admired Bruegel’s version of this story which is an example of someone taking a biblical story and doing it on their own terms. From their own background and experience. I’ve done the same. I enjoyed it as a linked sequence of canvases. Leaving the parents encountering the world, coming back to NZ values and traditions and a little bit wiser after sampling distractions and vices! Sort of rites of passage / of growing up. Nigel Brown, 1999 The eternal parable set in the thriving Sky Tower metropolis of the South Pacific. During 1997 the artist was making regular trips between his home in Sandringham and the Glassworks Studio in Mt Eden, where he was working on the stained glass windows for Auckland Cathedral - a commissioned project that had been occupying him since late 1993. The tedium of driving perhaps relieved by the sprawling panorama of Auckland. The ever observant artist’s eye focusing on the central rising casino sky tower, like a black crucifix or the petrified pillar of Sodom. Just as the great centre window in the Cathedral celebrates the biblical myth of salvation, Prodigal Son likewise testifies that no amount of casino corruption will ever completely eclipse the values of love and compassion that dwell in the human spirit. In the left panel, the moon symbolises the mystery of life perceived by the innocence of youth. Life’s journey begins with confidence, how else could it begin, but in awe of the magnificence of almighty nature. But even in the second panel, a wizened prophet in the persona of James K Baxter reminds us there will be mighty temptations (the wine glass, the dens of gambling and iniquities, the seductress in black), along the road which is well-trodden - like the beaten path of Carmina Burana between the monastery and the distant village ale house. Even nature itself seems violated and polluted (the up-turned kiwi icon). So in the fourth panel the exuberance of youth is exhausted and finally collapses in a way that the biblical parable is suddenly condensed into the individual tragedy of entering the casino with ambitious but misguided hopes of a better life and emerging raggard and tattered, financially and psychologically wasted. But although we do not question the comforting salvation of the Father’s embrace, we maybe are left wondering if it alone is enough to save us. We hope it is - the kiwi is definitely back on its feet and the gush of the fresh waterfall brings the purifying and nourishing influence of water that salvation must be. From text written by Tony Martin affixed verso.