Chris Wise: Aotearoa Art Fair 2026

Chris Wise recently took residence in New Zealand's South Island to develop a site-specific body of work. What emerged was a charged cross-Tasman exchange, with an Australian plein-air painter dropped into an incomparable and unfamiliar landscape.  These works aren't polite translations of place. They're forged in it, shaped by weather, grit, and exposure. Otago isn't merely referenced - it's embedded, pressed into the surface, unapologetically local. 

Chris is recognised for large-scale abstract landscapes that act as physical records of place. He invites the environment into the work - earth, hay, crushed rock and river sand are dispersed and embedded into the surface. The evidence of time, weather, and terrain doesn't sit in the background - they mark, interrupt, and co-create the image alongside his distinctively responsive mark-making. The process is raw and reactive - action painting in the open, body focused on the moment, physically moving with the elements, not against them. These are not just hedonistic landscape experiences - there is a stoic duty in these works, made not so much as an indulgence, but driven by a necessity to make them.

Chris Wise is a Sydney-based abstract painter who has a lifelong connection to landscape and expressive mark-making. Born in London, his early plein air work took shape in overnight, large-scale paintings in Hampshire's New Forest, culminating in a First-Class BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting before relocating to Australia in 1999. Chris has been a finalist in notable Australian art prizes, including the 2024 National Emerging Art Prize, the Greenway Art Prize, and the National Contemporary Art Prize. He was also a non-acquisitive award winner at the 2024 Paddington Art Prize and the highly commended award-winner of the 2025 Hawkesbury Art Prize. His work was recently included in 'Australian Abstraction' at Macquarie University, a major exhibition surveying contemporary abstract painting in Australia. He undertakes regular self-directed painting trips and artist residencies, most recently with the Nock Art Foundation in Aotearoa, where these works were made.

Artist Talk - Friday 1 May, 3PM