Reverie

Framed as a collection of daydreams, Reverie is a window into the mind of East Auckland artist Joseph John Watson. Following his interest in ‘strange art’, his work explores the bizarre, dreamlike and irrational.

Peering into Watson’s reality we are enveloped by vibrant fields of contrasting colour, swirling figures and morse code-like dots and dashes. In his repetition of symbols and figures, he creates his own hieroglyphic language that becomes a pillar of his artistic approach. There is a simultaneity to Watson’s style: at first glance the work is whole, the recurring symbols and figures ebbing and flowing through one another as a collective image. Then, your eye is caught by the gnarled teeth of a yelping nervous beast and suddenly his jarring style forces your focus to a singular image within the larger body of work.

Drawing inspiration from an exceptionally diverse sweep, his art is an assemblage of self-expression in the same vein as Jean-Michel Basquiat, a neo-expressionist of the late 1970s and 80s. With a style reminiscent of Pop Art artists Keith Haring and Yayoi Kusama, Watson blends the chaotic and expressive tendencies of Basquiat with the psychedelic colours of Kusama and geometric lines of Haring into an expressive abstraction of his reality.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Joseph John Watson has been avidly painting since 2022, his work has no intentional overarching theme and instead becomes symbolic representations of his reality. Currently a student at Howick College, he plans to pursue a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Auckland University of Technology after completing his secondary studies. Watson sees Reverie as only the beginning and is committed to pursing art as a formal career.

Reverie is his debut exhibition.

About The Wall

The Wall is our exhibition space dedicated to help give a leg up to emerging local artists still in high school or tertiary education by allowing them to go through the process of exhibition making without the stress and pressure that comes with the scale of the Malcolm Smith Gallery. The Wall also allows young artists more exposure than a traditional gallery space by being in the concourse area amongst all the action.