Artwork Information

Rodney Fumpston’s Egypt series provides different glimpses of the ancient pyramids, their dramatic angular weight silhouetted against a pink and blue sky. The desert is represented by thin washes of tan and gold ink, while the pyramids are resolutely solid. Adept at handling sensitive atmospheric effects, Fumpston’s skies glow with the transition from dark to light. One of New Zealand’s most prominent printmakers, Fumpston has worked across lithography, mezzotints, etching and aquatints, exploring architecture’s relationship to space and the mesmeric power of saturated colour on paper. As the writer Sheridan Keith states, ‘colour is Fumpston's soothing balm, the intoxicating liquor in which his images are fixed, a suspension in which the straight line and the painterly effect inter-relate.’ The Egypt series is a seminal body of work and was based on the artist’s own experiences of travelling in the Middle East. Fumpston followed the series up with prints based on experiences in India, Japan, and his second home of Fiji.