PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Auckland Lot No. 93 Art+Object, 18/08/2011

In the 1960s, Robert Ellis began painting his celebrated Motorway series. The creation of these works involved distilling land data, aerial perspectives and topographical information into painted patterns and symbols. City in a Dark Red Landscape is an intricate work. The bright red which permeates the scene can be interpreted as lava-like; bloody; of the earth. It resembles an urgent river of brake lights, and the light pollution of a city in flux.

Through translating different impressions of perspective and landscape into a painted language, Ellis was able to compose elegant - albeit frenetic - symphonies of civilisation and infrastructure such as this one. The painting possesses a sense of both oppressive temporariness and deep-etched permanence: everything is changing, but at the same time, this cityscape feels like forever.

Knowing that Ellis spent time working as an aerial photographer in the Royal Air Force helps - it makes the work's immense perspective more accessible. Looking through this aerial lens, we encounter the metamorphosis of a free flowing city. The clash of colour in City in a Dark Red Landscape is arresting and visceral; it seems as though the struggle between red and black is pushing against the limits of the painted medium. This feeling of evolution is intentional on the artist's part. For Ellis, these paintings were a means of exploring ideas about universal urbanisation and city expansion. Specifically, they functioned as a commentary on the motorway development and urban transformation plans which had been underway in Auckland since the 1950's