Previous Exhibitions

For the month of February 2019, ZIMMERMAN is featuring selected oil paintings on canvas by Taranaki artist Tony Rumball.

Rumball’s paintings range from new to earlier works, including “Don’t mind if I do”, completed in 2008 but exhibited publicly for the first time this year.

The selected paintings brim with Rumball’s characteristic colour and humour.

In the optimistically titled “A Last Ciggie” a winged pig flies overhead, while the red-haired woman enjoys a few more puffs.

The playful diptych “Kids in Masks” depicts a group of youngsters having a riotously good time, dancing about the streets in their brightly hued shirts and hats.

“Steady Eddie” features a jauntily swinging plastic clown, brought face to chest with a voluptuous porcelain doll. Inspired by two miniature figurines in Rumball’s home, the composition places the unlikely pair in a comical encounter.

“Oops 2”, by its title, suggests an accident waiting to happen. A student server, absorbed in her own thoughts, distractedly carries a tray of food and drink – what could possibly go wrong?

The largest – and earliest – painting in the exhibition is “Don’t mind if I do”. It features a Nigella-esque barmaid, leaning across the counter with a beer mug, her gathered patrons reflected in the glass.

“Man at an exhibition” portrays just that: a pompous elderly gentleman leans on a cane, critically surveying the displayed art works. “Hand tools” has a similarly self-explanatory title, depicting a mix of familiar and obscure implements lined up on a work bench.

More curious is “Out and about”, a work inspired by Guy Fawkes night on the farm. A masked figure carries a sack of coal, ready to further stoke a blazing bonfire, while the hapless animal behind him nervously watches on.

For more than 30 years Tony Rumball has painted with an art group founded in Stratford by the late Tom Kriesler. A regular exhibitor in Taranaki, Rumball has shown works with ZIMMERMAN since 2010.