Craig Potton

 

CRAIG POTTON – BIOGRAPHY

 Craig Potton is a noted New Zealand photographer and conservationist. Born in Nelson, he

gained degrees in Eastern Religion and English, then, after a brief teaching career, began working full-time for the conservation movement. He remains actively involved in conservation work more than 20 years later.

During the 1980s Craig wrote and produced a number of national park handbooks and established himself as one of New Zealand’s leading photographers of wilderness landscapes. In pursuit of his photography he has travelled, tramped and climbed extensively in New Zealand, its sub-Antarctic Islands, the Dry Valley and Ross Sea areas of Antarctica, Sabah, the Pacific Islands and the Nepal Himalaya. Craig Potton, Moment and Memory exhibition listing Craig has had numerous exhibitions of his photographic prints over the last decade. He is most widely regarded for his book publications and as one of New Zealand’s foremost landscape photographers.

Craig is the founder and owner of Craig Potton Publishing, a company based in Nelson where he lives. His previous photographic publications include Images of a Limestone Landscape, Yesterday’s New Earth, Tongariro – A Sacred Gift, New Zealand Under the Southern Sky, Above New Zealand, Offerings from Nepal, Wearable Art – Design for the Body, Classic Walks of New Zealand, Moment and Memory – Photography in the New Zealand Landscape, and The Southern Alps. He has recently completed the major publication New Zealand’s Wilderness Heritage with Les Molloy.

 

Exhibition Listing

Craig has also exhibited both in New Zealand and Australia, and 2004 saw a major retrospective of Craig’s work at the Rowe Gallery in North Carolina. In May 2005, he had a major retrospective exhibition at Nelson’s Suter Gallery.

Craig has directed the special effects scenic units for Lord of the Rings trilogy and Peter Pan films. He also worked on the Narnia and King Kong movies.

  • 1989 Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand.
  • 1992 ‘Tongariro’ exhibition at Ruapehu Gallery; sponsored by Kodak New Zealand.
  • 1995 ‘Nepal Offerings’ exhibition at SOCA Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand; sponsored by Kodak New Zealand.
  • 1996 A major exhibition at New Zealand Photofest, Wellington, New Zealand; sponsored by Photolab.
  • 2001 ‘New Zealand Landscapes’ exhibition at Wilderness Gallery, Tasmania, Australia.
  • 2002 Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand.
  • 2004 ‘Improbable Eden - photos from the Dry Valleys of Antarctica’; exhibition at International Antarctic Centre, Christchurch, New Zealand.
  • 2004 A major retrospective at North Carolina’s Rowe Gallery, USA.
  • 2005 ‘In the Eye of the Albatross’, Southland Museum & Art Gallery, Invercargill, New Zealand.
  • 2005 ‘Festival of Colour’, Wanaka, New Zealand.
  • 2005 ‘Finding the Wild’, Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand.
  • 2006 Floating on Ice. Photographs from the Ross Sea, Christchurch Art Gallery
  • 2007 Reveries An exhibition (17 images) as part of a major show on consciousness of death. Curated by Helen Ennis, Canberra Portrait Gallery.

 As well as these, Craig has exhibited work publicly in numerous individual and group shows at small venues.

 In 2008, his work will be exhibited in Poland at the acclaimed Luksfera gallery in Warsaw and in Wroclaw’s Old City Square.  

Critical Comments

Emmet Gowin, Professor in the Humanities Council and Visual Arts, Princeton University, wrote of the photos in Moment and Memory that they represented ‘a triumph, a real work of affirmation. I like the unrestrained affection for beauty’.

Of Craig’s book, Improbable Eden, Gowin wrote, ‘Improbable Eden is fabulous, wonderfully printed and amazing in every way. Certainly it puts forward a place that most of us will never visit, let alone make into wonder-filled photographs – just spectacular.’

Robert Adams, photographer and author of Beauty in Photography wrote of Moment and Memory, ‘not only are the pictures astonishing, but the text speaks to me, too.’