For an artist whose work features splendid rhododendrons, beguiling garden paths and perfectly rendered natives, Karl Maughan spends remarkably little time outdoors.

He tried painting en plein air (on location) but found it wanting, so he works from photographs instead.

The figurative shapes, bold colours and distinctive florals that encapsulate Maughan’s work easily conjure the romantic image of the artist at his easel in a field, but it’s simply impractical for the vast canvases Maughan works with.

Though he’s six foot three, he often needs a ladder to reach the top of his canvases. Trying to balance a canvas on an outdoor easel just doesn’t work, he says.

What does work surprisingly well is the integration of Australian eucalypts with traditional English flowers such as azaleas, carnations and the rhododendrons that have become Maughan’s signature.

The unlikely combination of such diverse plants can be seen in his first formal exhibition in Sydney this month at Martin Browne.

Not that eucalyptus trees dominate 
or proliferate throughout these works. 
“I don't like to get into botanical debates, but I easily could, with some of the opinions I’m given on my work. I’m not aiming to translate plants exactly as they are. That’s the point,” Maughan says.

“I was once told that rhododendrons are not exactly as round as I paint them, but I just responded that I’d wanted to paint something perfectly round, so 
I did,” he laughs.

Maughan’s paintings are inspired by real life. In spring and summer he makes photographic pilgrimages to gardens that inspire him.

“I’ve now amassed a large library of photographs from which I paint. I don’t slavishly copy them but they’re a useful tool and reference for me,” he explains.

There are about 50 gardens in Maughan’s photographic library, with most of the images taken on the sunniest days.

“I’m a bit particular about when I shoot gardens. A lot of things can stuff me up – such as too much cloud. I like to have high contrast in my photographs,” he says.

A visit to Maughan’s studio will not yield a single photo – at least not obviously. The photographs in his library span 22 years and he still draws on some of the earliest ones.

“Which is quite funny,” Maughan says, “because when I go back and visit those gardens, I find that naturally they’re quite different to how I’ve been painting them because they’ve grown.”

SIGNATURE STYLE

There’s earnestness about Maughan’s otherwise sunny personality that belies the bright confidence of his paintings.

It comes through in his fastidiously tidy studio, a converted room in the central Auckland home he shares with his partner, novelist Emily Perkins.

When the couple returned to New Zealand from the UK three years ago, they came back with their three young children, their established careers and a shared desire to live in their birth country.

The pair travelled to England at the same time 
14 years ago, leaving New Zealand as friends and returning as a married couple.

Maughan says the New Zealand art scene has taken him aback since he arrived home.

“It’s quite small but it’s vital. You get high-quality art overseas because of the sheer number of people doing it, but in New Zealand the diversity and the quality are quite phenomenal,” he says.

As for the hint of sameness in his own work, Maughan doesn’t see it.

“When people ask if I want to paint something different to rhododendrons, I ask them if they’ve ever felt they wanted to express the same thing in a language they don’t speak. My work is incredibly diverse,” he says.

That said, an eclectic collection of azaleas, carnations and New Zealand and Australian natives is slowly infiltrating Maughan’s latest works, but he insists he’s not setting out to popularise the unfashionable carnation:

“They are sort of loathed universally, aren’t they? 
I doubt I could make a carnation become fashionable all of a sudden, but I saw a great garden with carnations as a border and it seemed interesting to incorporate.”

Another device sneaking into an increasing number of Maughan’s canvases is the garden path. Paths are a mysterious aspect of any garden, he says. “I like honing in on that mystery, teasing the viewer with where the path might lead.”

ART SCENE

While Maughan is keen to become a regular artist on the Australian circuit, he has no plans to emulate Australian and New Zealand flora.

“Natives are there in my work; they tend to get slipped into the background when gardens will have big rimus, pungas and kauris,” he explains.

“They are rarely brought into the foreground, because they lack colour.”

As for where the garden theme originated, Maughan claims he just fell into painting gardens and landscapes.

“I always painted what was around me, and my mother was really interested in gardening. She’s a landscape architect and her use of gardens and her own garden at home made it seem incredibly natural to paint gardens.”

Maughan sees art today becoming increasingly diverse.

“There’s less fascination now with one place where all the great art happens. It’s not so localised. What happens is people make their way in big cities – New York and London 
– so those places get a good influx of talent, but I think that what’s happening locally in New Zealand at the moment is quite intriguing.

“Today, people are more comfortable and confident in their own environment to make art where they are, wherever that happens to be.”

EXHIBITIONS

2–27 April 2008

Martin Browne Fine Art

57–59 Macleay Street

Potts Point, Sydney

October 2008

Gow Langsford Gallery

Cnr Kitchener and Wellesley streets

Auckland, New Zealand