Paul Hartigan

Paul Hartigan is an Auckland-based artist whose successful career spans five decades. A painter, photographer and sculptor, he is best known for his large-scale public neon installations in Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington and Christchurch. Hartigan's destinctive artistic vision places him as a well-known entity within contemporary New Zealand art.

His acclaimed monochrome neon Colony (2004), transformed the University of Auckland's Engineering Building on Symonds St, and won the Metro Award for Best Public Sculpture in 2006. In Chistchurch, Nebula Orion (2001) commissioned by Orion NZ Ltd, is a giant Hartigan neon work that survived the earthquake of 2011 and continues to operate today.

He is represented in the country's major art institutions including Auckland Art Gallery, the Chartwell Collection, Te Papa Tongarewa, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, the Sarjeant Gallery, The National Library of New Zealand and GOMA Queensland, Australia.

Paul Hartigan on his 'Still Life' works:

"The Hartigan Metaphors 2024-2025, are a series of bronze sculptures that conflate the artist's everyday with religious imagery of the divine. Disposable coffee cups now become chalices, metal forms full of grace and potency - Byzantine gold. 

These new light-works use 'sunlight and bronze' instead of neon gas. Shifting light activates the vessels to play, where light and shadow come together to reveal their intriguing chalice forms. 

People are captivated and thrown by the unexpected weight of the object, laughter erupts upon handling - the irony flips them out. You can ring them like a bell too, each has 'its own unique sound'. 

My bronze cups are a personal 'metaphor for life and death' - they're a McCahon cross, same subject but 'hand-held'. That's what these sculptures are about, poignant objects, with a story. "