Bio
Born 1961 in Auckland, New Zealand. Lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand.
Geoffrey Notman's recent series 'New Zealand Idle' takes familiar landscape scenes from a family summer car trip and slightly alters the lens we view them through. Standing before Notman's intensely still paintings we are halted, left standing by the roadside; their painted stillness immobilises us. Accustomed to being presented with a ‘scene', we gaze intently, ready to be met by beauty. Yet it's not postcard beauty we are offered. Rather these are unassuming settings, some almost squalid if it were not for something very clean or studied in the light. [...]Promising a prospect, the images turn out to be more like unsavoury views across a neighbour's back fence.
Abby Cunnane, New Zealand Idle: standing still in the landscape, recent work by Geoffrey Notman, 2010.
Geoffrey holds a Diploma of Visual Communication from the Wellington School of Arts (1983). He spent a number of years as a freelance illustrator and designer and has been painting full time since 2002.