More Hybrids by John Roy

It's the last weekend of Here and There and I'm looking at the largest Hybrid in the exhibition. A friend just came in and wondered if the figure wasn't more than a little introverted. With his gaze hidden by the building, the figure would seem to be using it as a periscope - staring into some internal void. And generally John's work is introspective - the way that good art sometimes is. It quietly thinks about the contemporary world and our place in it.

Talking to John Roy

We talked to John Roy about his latest exhibition Here and There.

MNG: You've often used rabbits in your work before. Why rabbits?

JR: I like to use rabbits because they say so many different things depending on the viewers reading of the work.

MNG: Your work has often engaged with architectural forms. But the Hybrids are a little different. Metaphorically all buildings are an extension of ourselves in that they are the product of human projects and labour. Is this what you are referring to, and what's the significance or meaning of the Hybrids?

JR: I see the Hybrids as a fusion of people and buildings - people being modified by the environment they live in.

MNG: Anything you want to say about the holes or perforations in your work?

JR: I like holes. I think of them sometimes being windows , other times I see
them as drawing with light and dark. A hole is the blackest black you can get, and at the same time it can let the light through.

MNG: And the soldier rabbits? Are soldier rabbits an actual breed...

JR: I used the soldiers as I liked the army in disguise aspect. I also liked the way the wall rabbits are abstract shapes and patterns from a distance, it is not until you get closer that you can tell what they are.

John Roy and his Hybrids

Are they buildings? Trophies to the instability of aesthetics? John Roy calls them Hybrids. They've started out as people and in the alchemy of art, transmuted into buildings. On each side where the base meets the buildings are a set of hands and feet as a reminder. John's signature holes perforate almost all the Hybrids along with formalist bands of colour. The largest Hybrid here suggests the Empire State building, while the one next to it, a mosque or perhaps the Chrysler building.

Lonnie Hutchinson & Hand Maid in Mt Albert

Lonnie Hutchinson's work often carries a sub-text. It's only apparent here in the title - Hand Maid in Mt Albert - and perhaps in the doily like shapes of some of the cut-outs that make up this installation. It's a subtext about the place of Polynesian women in contemporary society, about 'craft' (that much disputed word), about sculpture, about applied art. In this work, the notion of sculpture is ephemeral and fragile - with implied movement and a lightness of touch.