Liliu (detail)
2006
various media on paper
courtesy of the artist and Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland

JULIAN HOOPER New Zealand
The Gus Fisher Gallery

I have a keen sense of my ancestral history, yet also a sense that I have the opportunity to work it out for myself, to argue it, to create it. It is the degree of the unknown that inspires me. I am primarily interested in following my imagination, ignited by an historical record and fuelled by a love of images.

- Julian Hooper

Background

Julian Hooper was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1966, where he still lives and works. He spent time as a child living on the island of Tokelau, where his father was an anthropologist. Hooper has been exhibiting since the late 1980s and has had regular shows in recent years at Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland including Other Places, 2002; Williwaw, 2004; The Unreliable Guide, 2005; and Hupa, 2006. In 2000, with the support of a grant from Creative New Zealand and the Wallace Art Trust, he held the International Studio Program residency in New York, participating in the Program's Open Studio show and exhibiting at Rare Gallery in 2001. Other group exhibitions include Just Painting, Auckland Art Gallery, 2006. Hooper currently tutors painting at Unitec, Auckland.