Seen and unseen
Shelley Masters
May 8–20, 2025
Late Night Viewing: May 8, 5:30–7pm
|
"When we think we’re alone we might not be, and when we think we have seen something we could be mistaken."- Shelley Masters |
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Seen and Unseen
Oil on Board, Tray Framed 600 x 900mm 2025 $6500 
Distant Relations
Oil on Board, Tray Framed 600 x 900mm 2025 $6500 SOLD |
Eleventh Hour
Oil on Board, Tray Framed 600 x 900mm 2025 $6500 
The Magic Carpet
Oil on Board, Tray Framed 600 x 900mm 2025 $6500 |
Goodbye to all that
Oil on Board, Tray Framed 600 x 900mm 2025 $6500 |
Waving not Drowning
Oil on Board, Tray Framed 900 x 1200mm 2025 $11,000 SOLD |
Pre-purchases invited: Email: i[email protected] Phone: +6493684554
Additional artwork information and imagery available. Contact the gallery for additional images of each artwork.
Follow us @black_door_gallery_ for social updates
Additional artwork information and imagery available. Contact the gallery for additional images of each artwork.
Follow us @black_door_gallery_ for social updates
EXTENDED TEXT
Shelley Masters invites us into a series of interiors where longing, memory, and quiet transformation unfold. These rooms — at once familiar and unknowable — act as stages for subtle yet potent happenings: a curtain stirs in a passing breeze, a figure slips through an open door, a book lies half-read. We encounter these scenes already in motion, mid-thought, mid-emotion — the narratives left open, asking us to complete them.
A recurrent theme in Masters’ work is silence. His paintings often depict lone figures seated in contemplative interiors, surrounded by polished wooden floors and high windows casting long reflections. These are not simply rooms, but vessels for introspection, memory, and the quiet passage of time. Books appear often — held, read, or stacked nearby — suggesting an active inner life, and a retreat from the external world. What is depicted is a moment in time; but for these figures, it might as well be a lifetime.
Masters layers his work with echoes of the past, weaving the unseen presence of ancestors and earlier artists into the fabric of his paintings. On the walls within these painted interiors hang artworks — these paintings within paintings are imagined collaborations with historic artists he has never met but feels deeply connected to. Through this, Masters speaks to the way our architectural spaces become vessels for memory, loss, and human connection across time.
Though his work shares a kinship with American realism — capturing figures in private moments of solitude or quiet revelation — Masters forges his own path. His paintings hum with a subdued drama, revealing the modern tension between intimacy and isolation. Whether the disconnection of his subjects is chosen or imposed is left for the viewer to decide.
In one of his more recent works, Seen and Unseen, a subtle shift occurs: a young woman, seated beneath a window, spies on her older neighbour working at a laptop. Her two abandoned books suggest a moment when curiosity outweighed introspection. It may mark a new departure — a rare moment of manifest interest in another, though it is still filtered through distance and concealment. Generally, Masters allows us to intercept his figures’ gazes on our own terms — without moralising, without instructing us to finish the story.
Writer and friend of the artist James Hamilton-Paterson reflects on how these works radiate a kind of stillness, a welcome pause and a striking contrast to the strident, egoistic noise that dominates so much of the art world today.
Masters trained in London as a designer and illustrator, worked in the theater, and spent decades as an award-winning graphic designer. His career included commissions for the British Museum, the Royal Festival Hall, Pfizer, IBM, and the British government. Since moving to New Zealand in the early 2000s, he has devoted himself to painting full-time. His work is held in private and public collections across the UK, Europe, and New Zealand.
Collaborative text by James Hamilton-Paterson, Matthew Masters and Neala Glass
A recurrent theme in Masters’ work is silence. His paintings often depict lone figures seated in contemplative interiors, surrounded by polished wooden floors and high windows casting long reflections. These are not simply rooms, but vessels for introspection, memory, and the quiet passage of time. Books appear often — held, read, or stacked nearby — suggesting an active inner life, and a retreat from the external world. What is depicted is a moment in time; but for these figures, it might as well be a lifetime.
Masters layers his work with echoes of the past, weaving the unseen presence of ancestors and earlier artists into the fabric of his paintings. On the walls within these painted interiors hang artworks — these paintings within paintings are imagined collaborations with historic artists he has never met but feels deeply connected to. Through this, Masters speaks to the way our architectural spaces become vessels for memory, loss, and human connection across time.
Though his work shares a kinship with American realism — capturing figures in private moments of solitude or quiet revelation — Masters forges his own path. His paintings hum with a subdued drama, revealing the modern tension between intimacy and isolation. Whether the disconnection of his subjects is chosen or imposed is left for the viewer to decide.
In one of his more recent works, Seen and Unseen, a subtle shift occurs: a young woman, seated beneath a window, spies on her older neighbour working at a laptop. Her two abandoned books suggest a moment when curiosity outweighed introspection. It may mark a new departure — a rare moment of manifest interest in another, though it is still filtered through distance and concealment. Generally, Masters allows us to intercept his figures’ gazes on our own terms — without moralising, without instructing us to finish the story.
Writer and friend of the artist James Hamilton-Paterson reflects on how these works radiate a kind of stillness, a welcome pause and a striking contrast to the strident, egoistic noise that dominates so much of the art world today.
Masters trained in London as a designer and illustrator, worked in the theater, and spent decades as an award-winning graphic designer. His career included commissions for the British Museum, the Royal Festival Hall, Pfizer, IBM, and the British government. Since moving to New Zealand in the early 2000s, he has devoted himself to painting full-time. His work is held in private and public collections across the UK, Europe, and New Zealand.
Collaborative text by James Hamilton-Paterson, Matthew Masters and Neala Glass