Barbara Tuck has a fascination with the delicate chemistry that holds the natural world together. Her investigation has been driven by curiosity about contemporary science and a plethora of experiments with the possibilities of scale, surface, composition and means of applying paint. She says of her practice “It is from the process of painting, engaging with the enjoyment of painting, that the work emerges.” Since the 1960’s Tuck has enmeshed abstract and figurative modes of working to cultivate complex paintings.

After six decades of creating, Tuck continues to produce paintings of sublime worlds in gem-like colours. Mysterious and enchanting, they are inspired from her annual expeditions to ‘wild’ locations. Many of Tuck’s landscapes favour her multiple stacked narratives, where different viewpoints and stories are grouped together in one canvas.

Barbara Tuck (b. 1943, Hamilton) graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University in 1965. After taking a break to have children she began exhibiting in Auckland in 1980. Barbara Tuck made her first trip to Europe in the late 1960s. Over the years, travel has become a consistent theme and influence in her artwork portrayed with painterly expression. This surprisingly abstract work Repetitions was created for Muka print studio and was included in their limited-edition series New Zealand 1990; Lithographs by 20 artists, created for New Zealand’s sesquitennial celebrations.