Bill Culbert is regarded as one of New Zealand’s foremost contemporary artists, renowned for work centred around artificial light, explored across the mediums of painting, photography and, as here, sculptural installation. Found and recycled materials also commonly played a part in his practice.
Having begun to establish himself in his home country, in 1957 Culbert accepted a scholarship to study painting at the Royal College of Art, London. A truly international figure, Culbert would spend his career between Provence, France, New Zealand and London, also undertaking residencies in New York and San Franscisco in the 1980s.
Light became incorporated into his work in around 1967, after which time it became his central medium. Culbert was fascinated by its qualities, particularly once diffused through repurposed everyday objects and detritus, including plastic bottles and lamp shades.
Sculptural installations became the most celebrated aspect of his oeuvre, highlighted in solo exhibitions for prestigious institutions such as the Serpentine Gallery, London (1977, 1979 and 1984), and City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (1997). He was also the recipient of many major public commissions, notably Skyline for the Millennium Dome in London (2000), and Void (2006), in the atrium of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. In 2013 Culbert represented New Zealand at the 55th Venice Biennale.
