Millar in colour

Painter Judy Millar explains her international reputation over her local to Art World: “I’m in the curious position that no one really gets what I’m doing, and they never did.” In the early 2000s, Millar’s relentlessly colourful surfaces woven together by fingers or rags split the New Zealand art world in two. While some critics and curators defended her as one of the country’s most important artists, just as many saw her as an archconservative who made things that were a weird throwback to a time when painting mattered more than it does today. And while people at home argued about its merits, overseas dealers and curators started to notice her work. “Working both in Germany and in New Zealand,” Millar says, “the position I’ve been forced to take up is one that is completely independent.” At this year’s 53rd Venice Biennale Millar has transformed a church interior with a huge digital print of a painting. “I want to block any sense of the entire church from any one point. You’ll walk in and be met by this big curved surface, which will force you to walk around it. And as you walk around, the church will unravel itself.” (June/July 29)