Karl Maughan is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s best-known painters of gardens, and with this exhibition he returns to his roots in the Manawatū. Born in Wellington, Maughan moved with his family to the Manawatū in the early 1970s, first living on a farm near Colyton, then in Palmerston North, and finally settling in Ashhurst in 1977.
Maughan’s fascination with the ordered beauty of gardens can be traced to this regional upbringing and to the early influence of his mother, a landscape designer and horticulturist. As a child, he was immersed in an environment of cultivated colour, structure, and seasonal change, both in the family garden and through visits to notable gardens across the Manawatū.
While in his fourth year at Elam School of Fine Arts, Maughan found himself searching for direction. His inspiration was reignited after a visit to his mother’s garden in Ashhurst, a place he later described as one he “fell into”. He took eight photographs of the garden, which became the basis of paintings he developed over the following two years. Four decades on, audiences continue to be captivated by Maughan’s distinctive, luminous garden paintings.
Maughan’s fascination with the ordered beauty of gardens can be traced to this regional upbringing and to the early influence of his mother, a landscape designer and horticulturist. As a child, he was immersed in an environment of cultivated colour, structure, and seasonal change, both in the family garden and through visits to notable gardens across the Manawatū.
While in his fourth year at Elam School of Fine Arts, Maughan found himself searching for direction. His inspiration was reignited after a visit to his mother’s garden in Ashhurst, a place he later described as one he “fell into”. He took eight photographs of the garden, which became the basis of paintings he developed over the following two years. Four decades on, audiences continue to be captivated by Maughan’s distinctive, luminous garden paintings.
