Gareth Brightion

‘you are not prepared to survive a house fire’

4 - 26 July 2025

you are not prepared to survive a house fire, will not aim for nostalgic or idealised principles of beauty, instead seek to illuminate the current forms of our digital, industrialised, and increasingly urbanised world. This exhibition will examine the ubiquitous visual language that is implied for navigation of our oversaturated modern lives. Deploying paint and reconstituted detritus to explore what it means to make unique art objects in the time of throwaway material culture, a polarised media landscape, and environmental unrest.

Gareth Brighton is a Pākehā artist and musician from Ōtautahi. He projects images upon and constructs forms from second-hand and salvaged materials in order to examine visual communication in a detritus-laden, late capitalist world. He studied Fine Arts at Canterbury University, in the printmaking department, during the time of the Christchurch Earthquakes. The feeling of collapse and rebuild has informed his aesthetic sense.

Brighton travelled around Europe in 2017, including a visit to the UK. After this, his practice moved away from printmaking and further into painting and abstraction. Beginning in 2020, his practice slowly moved off the walls and into three-dimensional space, making sculptures constructed out of discarded furniture found on the walk to the studio.

Brighton has since seen his painting practice return to some of its figurative roots, while still utilizing a more painterly and expressive mode of image making. His sculptural work has shifted from object making towards installation: bringing materials into the gallery, drawing others from the surrounding space, and working in an improvised manner to create work within and in response to the unique environment

Selected Exhibitions:

● Meter Marker. 2025. The green room, Otautahi.

● This Is Exactly What You Deserve. 2024. RM Gallery and Project Space, Auckland. Solo Exhibition.

● Fightingfit. 2023. New lands Gallery and Project Space, Dunedin. Solo exhibition.

● Hot Sick. 2023. Stanmore Block, Christchurch. Gareth Brighton and Sam Clague.

● Indecipherable Celebration. 2022. Ashburton Public Art Gallery, Ashburton. Solo exhibition.

● Method. 2022. The Pah House, Auckland. Group exhibition.

●Flotsam. 2022. 18a Project Space, Nelson. Solo exhibition.

●someofmany. 2022. Never Project Space, Hamilton. Solo exhibition.

●Formication. 2021. The Den, Christchurch. Gareth Brighton and Sam Clague.

Study:

● Masters (2016) Canterbury University School of Fine Arts

Publication:

● Temporal. Text by Warren Feeney, Keir Leslie and designed by Gemma Banks.

● Until Your Room is Ready. Text by Keir Leslie and design by Gemma Banks.

Collections

● The TUCAT Collection. Gifted to The Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi Tamaki, Auckland.

● The Wrightmann Collection (Private). Christchurch.

● The Nomadic Art Gallery Collection (Private). Waiheke Island.

● The Arts House Trust Collection. The Pah House, Auckland.