A brief introduction, a bit of history, summary of working methods and a short note on music.

Born 1955 – Balclutha - New Zealand Christopher John Finlayson lives with his wife Nicola Kim in an old farmhouse in Golden Bay, a secluded district in the northwestern region of New Zealands southern island. A multi-layered artist, he is capable of many commercial art practices. He also has personal artistic interests, creating works for exhibition and producing music.

His professional journey both public and private, is enveloped with challenging experiences from life threatening to profound. Along the way his work has touched the lives of many people and the environment in which they live.

A bit of History

In Auckland 1975 he began freelancing as an illustrator in magazines, brochures, newspapers and also work for book publishers. This landed him a position heading an Art department for a small but popular suburban newspaper 'The Inner City News'.

At the same time he was exploring his own 'private work' direction, which brought him into contact with other artists and to getting involved in the 'underground' scene of music, theatre, writers, poets and film makers. He was introduced to painting on a large scale by working on a stage set for a punk band promotion video.

After a few years, the contrast of his 'day job' and mixing with 'the other half', all got a bit to much of mixed messages. On one hand there was the pressure of a commercial world to comply with white collar conservative style and produce imaginative material designed to attract the unsuspecting greed of consumers. Then on the other hand rubbing shoulders with the arty crowd preaching freedom of expression and multi-level cultural awareness. Yet he felt he fell short of the gaze from a 'serious' art world for lack of acedemic compliance and a popular mono-typical painting style.

‘Surreal Meal’ 78 ink

In 1978 he exhibited in a group show featuring for the first time in New Zealand - an exhibition of NZ Surrealists. Closet Artists Gallery- Queen St, Auckland.

1982 he left Auckland and went bush for 9 months. In 1983 he resurfaced in Nelson, re-invented as a muralist. For a short time in 1984 he was on the Council payroll as an official City Muralist. An unprecedented civic position then and since. During that time he painted the now famous 'Aotearoa' mural at Port Nelson, which was declared a civic landmark and remains one of the most photographed environmental artworks in New Zealand.

Over the following years, muralwork and the like, introduced him into a variety of contrasting social environments throughout New Zealand. Along the way exhibiting private work in mainstream galleries, prestigious restaurants and occasionally an established dealer gallery.

1989, his muralwork in prisons became in part, a study for an internationally recognised book on Arts Therapy and Rehabilitation, focusing on the Health and Justice sectors of society.

He escaped serious injury in 1990 when working on exterior scaffolding 4 floors up the side of a building as Wellington was struck by repercussions of a force 5 earthquake.

He was the first 'known' artist to work on site during construction of Te Papa Museum of New Zealand.

The memorable 250metre mural painted on a construction fence was the longest in NZ at the time. When it was time to come down people complained. A televised public auction was held and from the sale of mural panels, fourteen thousand dollars was donated to a childrens charity.

In 1995, his expertise was requested on a huge Underwater World complex under construction in Nanjing, China. He lived and worked there on the project with local artists.

In recent years Finlayson has been working with youth and community groups on projects, mostly in the South Island. He is an advocate of raising arts awareness, particularly through his large civic environmental artworks and encouraging Community participation as a positive means to offer anybody, whatever their level of artistic understanding, an opportunity to physically influence their environment, safely, in a colourful and thought provoking way.

Apart from his public commissions, he remains active with private interests producing and exhibiting his art and music.