Justin Summerton

Born in Wirral, England in 1968, Justin Summertons family emigrated to New Zealand in 1972. He completed his Bachelor of Arts at Otago University in 1993. Between 1992 to 1997 Summerton travelled and painted extensively. He visited Liverpool, where he worked on Liverpool cityscapes; New York, where he began live painting in Central Park, and Nice, where he continued street painting. He also traveled, painted and exhibited in the United States, Australia and Europe. In 1998, being a keen surfer, he based himself in Kare Kare. He then returned briefly to his home town of Dunedin. He currently travels between Auckland, Dunedin and overseas destinations. Summerton has had numerous successful solo exhibitions in Auckland. His works harness the raw energy of New Zealand landforms and coast lines through the texture of his paint. He captures and intensifies this power with layers upon layers of dense oils, culminating in a landscape that is far from traditional, and so referring to New Zealand landscape with a fresh perspective. His latest paintings occupy an arena halfway between representational landscape and surrealist dreamscape.