Born in Dunedin in 1962, Neville Smitheram attended Auckland
University's Elam School of Fine Arts, graduating with a Bachelor
of Fine Arts in 1984. Following a decade of achieving critical and
commercial success in Auckland, Smitheram decamped to Levin to
concentrate on his artistic practice.
Much of Smitheram's painting is conducted in encaustic wax (a
traditional painting technique in which pigment is bound in a mix
of beeswax and tree resin). Following initial experiments with
encaustic in the early 1980's, Smitheram found the medium unique
and well-suited to his painterly style, despite the difficulties in
its application and preparation. He has continued to utilise the
technique as a mainstay of his artistic practice, the particular
properties of encaustic contributing to a sense of serenity that
threads its way through much of his work.
Smitheram's work balances abstract painterly concerns with the
demands of the representation of landscape. Throughout his work,
landscape is refined and defined, painted over and over until
pushed into a state of near abstraction so that it becomes ethereal
and elusive, an ideal rather than a perceived element. As his
career has progressed, Smitheram's interest in the abstract has
seen his work evolve to a quasi-topographical style whereby the
landscape functions as the foundation for an investigation into the
possibilities and limitations of the picture plane. In these works
contoured grids float within the canvas, seemingly without
substance yet still anchored to an invisible earth, a form poised
between perception and ideal.
Smitheram continues to produce work from his Levin studio and
his works are included in major collections throughout the
country.