Johl Dwyer's paintings are built things; poured plaster, resin and dye fill the cavity defined by the wooden stretcher, while in others, sediment layers of paint are scraped back. Appearing at first as a highly formal language, his paintings reveal playful, tactile propositions that display a sculptural sensitivity to light and built space. Dwyer's pictoral 'practice' is both abstract and physical. His processes convey an interest in interiority, albeit an interior which relies on the exterior: the surface, the wall for its meaning. By literally filling the frame, the support is a live component of Dwyer's work rather than a given. Recycled fragments of old paintings are thrown into new wet casts, and in one piece, a painterly shadow is cast from below - the cedar frame leaving a watermark in the hardened surface above. Green Terrace is a response to the challenges of a space affected by reflections of glass and people, or in the artist's words, it is an exhibition of 'paintings realized from the inside out.'

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Johl Dwyer is an Auckland based artist. Recent shows include Naptime, a group show at ABC, Chistchurch (2012), and Lost Temple, a solo show at Second Storey, Auckland (2011).