Tony De Lautour, Abstract Blue, ink on paper, 320 x 400mm. 

Collection of Julia Croucher.

Tony De Lautour was born in Melbourne in 1965 and came to New Zealand in 1967. He graduated from Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury with a BFA in sculpture in 1988. In 1991 he held his first solo show and shortly after won the 1995 Visa Gold Art Award. De Lautour’s art is quirky and full of dark humour. He often utilises geometric shapes which have, over the course of his practice, developed into a reappraisal of modernist abstraction. He frequently floats these bold slabs of colour over dark backgrounds, creating commanding compositions full of tension.