Opens 10 June 2022, more images to come after the opening…

Peter Donovan is a self-proclaimed folk artist; he was born in Hawkes Bay and now lives and paints in Wellington. He has had solo shows at the Judith Anderson Gallery in Napier, the Hastings Art Gallery, and many times since the early 1990’s at the Christopher Moore Gallery in Wellington.

Happy Trails- Artist Statement by Peter Donovan

Mamma don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys

They never stay home and love to roam

Tonto I always wondered what does kemosabe mean?

It means wrong brother

Billy there are guns across the river aiming at you

Lawmen on the trail would like to catch you

Bounty hunters don’t like you to be so free

Up to Boot Hill they would like to send you

Sleeping out on the veranda, playing cards till dawn in the hacienda

They have hired Pay Garrett to get you, doesn’t it make you feel so low down, hunted by the man that used to be your friend

Billy you are so far away from home

The gypsy queens are singing your grand finale

Down in the Rio Pecos Valley

Billy, you have been running for so long

“I thought the bull riders were heroically insane or insanely heroic” Billy Connolly after attending a Texas rodeo

Crow Song

In a sacred manner I live. To the heavens I gazed

In a sacred manner I live. My horses are many

Crowfoot-what is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night, it is the breath of a buffalo in the winter, it is the shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset

Ma take this badge off of me, I can’t use it anymore

It’s getting too dark to see, I feel like I’m knocking on heavens door

Ma take these guns off of me I can’t shoot them anymore

A long black cloud is following me knock knock knocking on heaven’s door

Courage, self-reliance and backbreaking work were the cowboy way. A firmness of character and boldness of vision.

Hi Yo Silver

AWAY