Trevor Pye was born in Te Awamutu in
1952 and educated in Australia, attending the North Adelaide School
of Art before completing his Bachelor of Arts in 1985 at the South
Australian College of Advanced Education in Adelaide. Pye later
returned to New Zealand, completing his Masters of Fine Art with
First Class Honours at Auckland University's Elam School of Fine
Arts in 1996.
Throughout his career, Pye's work has
been largely motivated by a desire to examine the human
relationship with the natural world. Whether in his earlier
sculpture or through his collage, drawing and painting, Pye has
consistently employed a fluid and organic style to present the
complexities of this relationship and to suggest certain
perspectives on our place in the world.
As his career has progressed, Pye's
work has undergone several phases: from convoluted re-presentations
of the
landscape rendered in a highly resonant palette; to darker,
more segmented worlds brimming with collage elements and
art-historical referents; to metaphorical landscapes populated with
a hybrid mix of abstract and representational imagery that explores
the 'constructed' world of human relationships.
Pye was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Grant in
1988 and 1996 and has held numerous solo shows and consistently
participated in group shows throughout his long and varied career.
Pye is also highly regarded for his illustrations, which have
graced the pages of over 200 locally and internationally published
children's books and for which he has received New Zealand and
UNESCO book awards. Pye has taught a new generation of artists as a
lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology School of Art
& Design and continues to produce and exhibit work from his
home studio in Tauranga.