Blair, Philippa New Zealand artist Born in Christchurch 1945 Lives and works in Auckland and Los Angeles Wanting more. More Movement, More Colour, More Culture, More Symbol, More Metaphor. Philippa Blair is on an unceasing journey in search of these “mores”. Bold strokes and fluidity of movement dominate her work. This is the artist traveler, whose art can be described as snapshots, not so much of objects themselves as of the experience of these objects and the experience of life captured in an instant. Blair draws inspiration and images from any and all experience within her reach, from local Pacific Polynesian Canoes (Pacific Canoe series of lithographs) to Arizona desert Indian tribes. Constant to her art in spite of the variety of its subject matter is the narrative voice of the artist herself, relating not only the experience as it was lived but also the joy, passion and occasionally sorrow of experiencing it. The trap is to interpret the narrative tendency in more expressionistic works as being in contradiction to more abstractly oriented oeuvres. Such apparent contradiction is resolved once the realization is reached that joy of experience, of discovery of any kind (be this concrete – as in the case with cultural objects – or in the more abstract form of a line, colour or composition), rather than an object or image itself is the true message being communicated. Painting, teaching, traveling summarize Philppa’s life since 1965. She has traveled extensively in Europe and the USA, and has taught art (at both secondary and tertiary level) in both the North and South Island as well as in Australia