Sheraton

Born in Auckland, Dashper attended the Elam School of Fine Art, graduating in 1981. Since 1980 he exhibited widely though was particularly associated with Peter McLeavey Gallery in Wellington. His work was included in Constructed Intimacies, the touring Moët & Chandon New Zealand Art Foundation exhibition of 1989–90 and the 1992 Headlands exhibition of New Zealand art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Much of Dashper’s work has addressed painting and its history, particularly the effects of distance and reproduction on painting in New Zealand.

This painting is one of a series exhibited in 1985 though the title’s reference to a large international tourist hotel built in Symonds Street, Auckland at the time remains enigmatic. Large areas of canvas have been allowed to show through a composition based on converging and diverging lines in bright primary colours.