When we sat down with John Reynolds, a ginger crunch slab from a nearby supermarket had recently taken his fancy. His eyes lit up as he spoke about it with the same effervescent energy he brings to his art - a mixture of warmth, curiosity and playfulness. A generous conversationalist, John's thoughts are a fascinating mix of humour and intellect, spontaneity and tangents.

What follows is a glimpse into the way he thinks about art, the role of the artist, and how he hopes people engage with his work.

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What have you titled your new work?

That's a great question, and it's something l've been thinking about a lot.

Titles are incredibly important to me, and every time l think l've landed on one, l'm not quite satisfied. What l'm doing with the work feels like casting a wide net - pulling in as many references, narratives, and threads as possible. By the time the artwork is finished, some of those threads have naturally fallen away, leaving the core imagery and content. At that point, the title can either reinforce or contradict that essence.

It's about engaging the broadest metaphoric reach.

l've considered titles that reference the mountains, the theatre of backdrops, or neither of those things. The challenge is a process where the work pushes back. l try to impose my vision, my ragbag of doubts, but the title will probably emerge on Friday, but certainly by Saturday. Nothing like a deadline!

For me, titles are as crucial as naming a child; they carry responsibility and have a life beyond the artist. A title orientates the audience, and guides them toward possible readings and meanings.

When people stand in front of the work, long after l'm gone, the title will anchor their approach to a reading or understanding. That's why l believe titles and text are a key part of the visual experience, something many others perhaps overlook.

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A lot of your work includes text. Where do they come from? How did your colour palette develop?

Well, here's a cute way to answer that, and you'll have to forgive me for being cute. So l claim English is my second language. I know, it sounds cute, but there's a deeper

truth there. Visual art is my first language. l find words magical, but also strange and difficult. When l speak or write, l tend to bounce from word to word, piling them up, rather than pursue a clear line of meaning. This unjoined-up thinking can be a portal to discovery.

Often, when trying to present ideas to an audience, l explore that through a series of speculations, confusions almost, hoping to clarify my thoughts as l speak.

To circle back to the question about colour preferences - working today as a painter here in Aotearoa, l feel the inevitable tendency to move on from the well-trodden territory of black and brown idioms.

l could argue that l'm more drawn to an idea of blue and blueness, because of my home and life in sunny Auckland, and the oceanic context beyond our isthmus. Blue of course is the colour of the south Pacific, the depths, the skies above, infinities.

Purple, for me, happily complicates the holiness of blue. It's a twilight richness and a wicked hue of oblivion and transubstantiation. Ultimately, l'm asking colour to do some heavy lifting for me -

in figuration, with tactility, and emotionality.

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In the past you were interested in commercial undercoats, particularly primer pinks?

Yes, absolutely. When l was cutting my teeth in art school, painting was considered somewhat  of an exhausted medium. Conceptual art, performance art, movements like Fluxus were considered to be far more relevant to contemporary practice. So despite working across mediums, l've always enjoyed a productive 'problem' with painting. And briefly l utilised standard builder's wood primer paints - Dulux primer pink, not chosen for it's inherent beauty, but as a kind of intellectual jujitsu. A sort of anti-art artfulness. Ugly pink as both a 'preparatory' coat for subsequent layers, and as an aesthetic shrug toward any refinement of choice and 'taste'.

Subsequently a lot of my work harbours an intentionally 'underdone' quality, which l figure as an edginess inviting the viewer in. l'm not attempting to present something fully resolved like say a Howard Hodgkin work that luxuriates in a poised painterly performance. Instead l wish my work to tiptoe between the under-cooked and the freshly baked. For me, art is fundamentally about asking questions, not providing answers.

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Why do you choose to do work in such a temporary fashion?

My claim would be that there's a licentiousness. There's a delicious quality to a work being temporary. It's like watching someone perform a beautiful dance - captivating yet fleeting. l recall seeing Michael Parmenter earlier this year perform here in Queenstown at an Arts Foundation fund raiser. He was simply a man in a suit on a tiny stage with music, but the way he moved was mesmerising. You're watching a coiled figure in space, absorbed and solitary, making patterns and gestures in the cool air, and then it's over. Innately human and all too brief.

l connect this temporary wall painting to that kind of performance. It's up for a couple of months, then it's gone forever. This reminds me of a line from American writer Joy Williams; "You dream a dream according to one order, and you remember it in another."  That's how l see this challenge - l dream it one way, and in the making, it takes on a different form. The audience, too, remembers it differently again. Months later they might recall, "Was it blue? Was it purple? Was there a mountain? Were there words?" Just like the dance - it lodges in your memory, an image, but in fragments.

So yes, large-scale wall paintings like this are performative by nature. The work appears, almost by magic, and the viewers don't often see the process behind it. My hope is that the work itself conveys a sense of it's own making, that the performance is embedded in the final outcome. l can't control how people interpret it, but that's the intention behind the work.

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Is there something that you hope an audience will take away from this work?

I hope the audience takes their own meaning from this work. Now, that might sound like l'm being, what's the word - magnanimous or even arbitrary. But the artist has to step back from the fray and allow the work to speak for itself. On Saturday, l'll be standing in front of the wall, talking and gesturing, while the work patiently, obdurately, waits for me to get out of the way so it can do it's thing. There's a risk for artists whom for a variety of reasons find themselves corralling the thinking around their projects. l always muse, "well, one day the trapdoor opens, and down you go, and then the work can really be seen for what it is, without the distraction of the artist's warm visage..." A funny example: l was watching a YouTube video of a painter l really admire, Susan Rothenburg. She was working in her studio talking about her processes while painting. And l found myself thinking, "Please just get out of the way, l want to see the work!" Even though she was generously bringing the process to life, l felt as if the artist was 'blocking the view'. l wasn't moved by the mechanics of her paint application, or the conversation, my attention was fundamentally on the work. For another audience this might be captivating, but l found it almost reductive. Of course l could also argue against myself here - so often audiences find the artist's insights both demystifying and revealing. And l'll probably find myself over-explaining this painting on Saturday, while the work itself will patiently wait for me to **** ***. I'll talk too much, then fly home, regretting, "Why didn't l just be quiet and let the audience ruminate on their own responses?"

Take Gordon Walters, across this room, for example - there's been so much analysis and debate around his work, while he is no longer here to explain or defend his project or motivations. Without the artist present, perhaps the work can better resonate in the cultural space.

A certain perspective opens up. As an artist you might inevitably be drawn to over-speculate around your work, like standing in front of a river saying, "Did you notice the reference to the mountain?" The work needs to speak for itself, in silence or in a cacophony. And the most ephemeral aspect of art is of course the artist.

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Ok, a lighter question now.

Yes. Ginger crunch. {laughs}

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