An initial encounter with these works offers an outpouring of hyper-saturated colour – the layering and juxtaposition of hue, the inundation of chroma. On the charged surfaces of the recent paintings from Timaru-based Michael Armstrong float imagery that continues to address themes that have preoccupied him throughout his career – social justice, politics, the environment and the misuse of power.

Phantasies – fictions where grotesque characters populate strange settings – is apt to describe these paintings. With jackbooted figures coalescing out of shimmering dabs of paint, the spectre of fascism in the twenty-first century conjures itself; the humanoid figure wielding a burning torch is a mascot for civil unrest; the gawking, cartoonish eyes a caricature of state and commercial surveillance. They are fantastic within their world contained within the canvas but point to anxieties about real global issues.

The cresting wave, an enduring motif, with its associations of unbridled power, seen in the context of the issues that Armstrong is interrogating – environmental destruction and climate change, authoritarianism and exploitation – becomes a gnarled claw on the cusp of unleashing wanton destruction. Armstrong may paint as a protest, but despite the confronting themes there is an effusiveness in the paintings’ execution. As he says, to paint is to be able to express a love of life.

Main image: Michael Armstrong, Compounding Error, 2024, acrylic on loose canvas.

Left image: Michael Armstrong, Mixed Motives, 2024, acrylic on loose canvas.