Julian Dashper (born 1960), New Zealand, Purple rain at Glorit, 1986, oil paint and conté on velvet. Purchased 1986 with Ellen Eames Collection funds

Style and substance

Vibrant colours and thick paint are typical of Julian Dashper’s paintings of the mid-1980s. This is the kind of work that might normally be associated with expressionism, used to portray deep emotions and make big statements.

Dashper adopts the style of expressionism but not its substance. Instead of angst and issues, this painting playfully refers to contemporary pop music and small-town New Zealand.

This sort of quotation was a strategy many artists used in the 1980s as a way of questioning art’s values and conventions.