Artwork information

In Roy Good’s assertively abstract Doric, 1972, a column of red and blue stretches the length of the composition, as if supporting the parameters of the canvas. Unlike the later Ionic and Corinthian columns, Doric pillars lack ornamentation and appealed to Good who was steeped in the functional design aesthetics of the Bauhaus. Good had trained at the School of Fine Arts, Canterbury University, where his interest in modernist abstraction developed early. In 1966 he moved to Auckland and pursued abstraction more fervently, establishing himself as part of a progressive group of painters who showed at the Petar/James Gallery, founded by James and Petar Vuletic in Auckland in 1972. Doric dates from a period in New Zealand art when the merits of the so called ‘international’ school versus regionalist styles of painting were hotly debated. Firmly established in the international camp, Good practised a mode of abstraction underpinned by rigorous geometricism and subtle colour relations which he evolved across his work in art and design. Some of his memorable logo designs include the kotuku on a red disc for the sesquicentennial commemoration in 1990, and the red eye ringed with the koru motifs for South Pacific Television.