LIGHT, LEGACY AND LANDSCAPE
JOHN TOOMER
MAY 14-30, 2026
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John Toomer sheds light on the quiet architecture of Aotearoa In Light, Legacy and Landscape, John Toomer turns his attention to the quiet architecture of Aotearoa- those often overlooked buildings that lie just outside our everyday notice, yet remain deeply embedded in the cultural and emotional fabric of New Zealand. Sheds, railway stations, grain stores, corner dairies, schoolhouses, modest homes- these are not just structures, but carriers of memory, labour, and identity.
Toomer’s work is driven by light. Not as something incidental, but as an active force, shaping mood, guiding the eye, and imbuing each scene with a subtle emotional charge. Across the exhibition, light falls gently across rooftops, edges along weatherboards and settles over the land, elevating the ordinary. Through Toomer’s technical and considered hand, a roadside building becomes a marker of human presence; a rural home, a site of endurance; a lone dwelling in an open landscape, a symbol of isolation and resilience. Tracing a line through places such as Middlemarch, Kaitangata, Ashburton, Sutton, Maniototo and Herbert, these works form a constellation of quiet monuments across Aotearoa. Light, Legacy and Landscape presents a compelling body of work in which structures hold traces of those who built them, inhabited them, and passed by them. In these works, memory, presence, and meaning quietly endure. |
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
John Toomer
Derelict Railway Shed Te Waewae Southland Oil on Canvas, Framed 950 x 550mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Evening at Gimmerburn Oil on Canvas, Framed 950 x 550mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Old Schoolhouse at Te Tua Southland Oil on Canvas, Framed 900 x 500mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Winters Morning at Knapdale near Gore Oil on Canvas, Framed 760 x 420mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Historic Flour Mill at Luggate Oil on Canvas, Framed 700 x 600mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Ida Valley Haybarn & Hawkdun Range Oil on Canvas, Framed 1000 x 500mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Thunderstorm over Macraes Oil on Canvas, Framed 700 x 900mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Derelict Vanguard Oil on Canvas, Framed 400 x 400mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Morning Mist at Fruitlands - Central Otago Oil on Canvas, Framed 400 x 400mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Evening at Sutton Oil on Canvas, Framed 400 x 400mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Abandoned Grain Store Ashburton Oil on Canvas, Framed 350 x 350 mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Summer in the Maniototo Oil on Canvas, Framed 400 x 400mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Old Store at Herbert Oil on Canvas, Framed 400 x 400mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Winter on the Maniototo Oil on Canvas, Framed 350 x 350mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Old FC Shop Kaitangata Oil on Canvas, Framed 400 x 400 mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Old Flour Mill at Temuka Oil on Canvas, Framed 400 x 400mm 2026 |
John Toomer
Evening at Middlemarch Station Oil on Canvas, Framed 400 x 400 mm 2026 |
