‘A rare talent’

Press, 18 March 1987, Page 22

‘A rare talent’

“A rare talent” was the description one Australian art director gave to Christina Conrad. Yet in New Zealand the artist, whose paintings will be on display next week at the Brooke-Gifford Gallery, is hardly known. » The painter lives at Dargaville in a cottage with her husband, Heinrich, also an artist, and two sons. She says of her painting that she uses the board like a stage. “I’m an actor on stage ... all my

crushes go onto it.” She paints her feelings, her friends, her family. Recent paintings are heavily textured. She draws from her surroundings. The trees and the stones, she describes as giving her life. The city is something broken. The country gives her life. She says she paints to communicate her ideas. She paints what interests her, obsesses her, at the moment. She says there is sexual

symbolism in her work but she doesn’t notice it. It is "dangerous” for her not to paint because she becomes obsessed with “any mad thing.” Descriptions of her work vary. Some say her paintings and clay pieces relate to European religious and African tribal art. Some that they have a raw honesty and a quirky sexual edge. Some that they have a unique vision. The Brooke-Gifford exhibition opens on Monday and runs for three weeks.