Butterfly Vacation

Born in Palmerston North in 1932, Patrick Hanly trained at the University of Canterbury School of Art from 1952 to 1956. In 1956 he travelled to London where while he worked in various occupations, he painted his first set of pictures - the emotional 'Fire Series'. It has become a practice for Hanly, as for many artists, to work out his ideas in a sequence of many paintings, drawings and prints. This cycle form of paintings on a theme would extend over a fairly short or a long period of time, depending on whether or not the line of investigation continued to be promising. During his six years overseas Patrick was influenced by a number of artists including Marc Chagall, whose poetically surreal works unexpectedly juxtapose floating objects and people in richly coloured spaces. Then came his responses to the works of Picasso, the tensely surreal images of Francis Bacon, and the English pop paintings of Peter Blake and David Hockney. On his return to New Zealand in 1962 Hanly felt impelled to reorientate his bearings towards the Pacific, especially in the sky, the bush, and sea spaces of New Zealand. His 'New Order Series' and 'Figures in Light' demonstrate a process of simplification by the stripping-down of images to their barest essentials. An examination of his oeuvre shows that he is essentially a painter who responds to feelings and emotions.