Roger Mortimer is an Auckland-based artist who graduated with a
Diploma in Teaching from Auckland University and a Bachelor of Fine
Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts in the late 1990's. Mortimer
exhibits extensively in solo and group shows.
Mortimer's work juxtaposes the medieval imagery of illuminations
and manuscript text with modern bureaucratic literature, skilfully
blending the stark and declarative writing of WINZ correspondence
or the authoritative tone of the Treaty of Waitangi with a fondness
for intricate Blackletter (Gothic) script,
soft tones and deftly rendered scenery.
In portraying institutional text in a quasi-medieval form,
Mortimer exposes the subtext and connotations of such
correspondence and draws allusions to the hand of the state in both
modern and medieval life - a subtext made all the more captivating
by the skill and quality of Mortimer's exacting painterly approach
and use of text in the composition as much for its graphic as its
literary aspects.