Paul Hooker

Paul Hooker is an established New Zealand fine artist known for his highly accomplished figurative and portrait oil paintings. His figurative work ranges from vibrant paintings of women in circus and steampunk dress to sunny beach and garden scenes to softly painted nudes. His portraits have won awards and been commissioned by a number of well-known organisations.

Of his circus paintings, Paul said: These paintings reflect our two worlds, the exterior and interior, the seen and unseen. The effects of our surroundings on our inner essence.

Paul is drawn by the inherent strength he finds in people while quietly observing their face and form. He favours a loose brush style with the work evolving on the canvas as he paints, and as he deepens his understanding of the subject. Character imperfections appeal to him and he balances his attempts to capture the essence of poses in the human figure with an interest in the life experienced by the individual person. Paul paints intuitively, through perception, and only uses photographs as a reference tool. Influenced by the American artist Alex Kanevsky, Paul’s figurative work is often given movement and atmosphere through his use of abstract backgrounds.

Paul also paints captivating New Zealand landscapes and still life. His interest in landscapes focuses on the extended vistas and rolling hills of the North Island, capturing the NZ summer with a finely tuned sense of light and atmosphere. His intimate still life renditions exploit the contrasting qualities of surface and light reflection, their detail and composition speaking to his senior experience in the craft.

Paul has enjoyed a career as an exhibiting painter, professional illustrator and tertiary lecturer in Auckland for more than forty years. In the seventies and early eighties he had an extensive career in illustration, working in several of the top Auckland advertising agencies. He tutored part-time at a number of tertiary institutions, including Whitecliff College of Art, for over twenty years. He has said that teaching life drawing, fashion, and figure studies encouraged him to constantly perfect his own technique.

Paul has completed a variety of significant private commissions including portraits of all of the America's Cup Skippers, and a series of three portraits for Kings College in Auckland. He has been a finalist in the Adam Portraiture Awards no fewer than six times and, in 2004, he was commissioned to design and illustrate six stamps and two first day cover motifs for the Christmas Stamps for NZ Post. Now retired from teaching, Paul is painting full time. His works are collected both nationally and internationally.

Art by the River is a modern Whanganui gallery, opened in December 2024. The gallery features a mix of emerging and established contemporary NZ artists, alongside an exclusive art Collectables selection of art for sale online, both prints and paintings. As an art dealers and collectors, we include rare and sought-after artworks by internationally recognised artists such as Gretchen Albrecht, Banksy, Damien Hirst, Ralph Hotere and, Andy Warhol. We are committed to supporting NZ artists by providing art exhibition space in-house, connecting both NZ and international art collectors with meaningful artwork, and contributing to Whanganui's unique cultural environs.