Description:

The Lost Hours project was conceived to reflect on a pivotal and mysterious moment in New Zealand art history: Colin McCahon’s 28-hour disappearance in Sydney, 1984, on the eve of his major retrospective at the Sydney Biennale. The project documents John Reynolds’ response through a series of paintings and gathered writings, creating a work that is as much about McCahon as it is about the nature of time, memory, and creative dislocation. It aims to deepen cultural understanding, open dialogue around artistic identity, and preserve this event within contemporary art discourse.

This book charts an idiosyncratic investigation of McCahon’s Lost Hours by Auckland artist John Reynolds—part homage, part historical musing, and part embrace of the unknowability that frames any artistic enterprise. Rather than offering resolution, the strategy assembles a constellation of responses—paintings, texts, and fragments—that mirror the event’s inherent ambiguity. The project becomes both an art-historical investigation and a contemporary meditation, inviting readers to encounter mystery instead of defining it.

The design responds directly to the project’s themes of dislocation and reflection. The book is conceived as a compendium of fragments—collaged paintings, art historical excerpts, and fragmented texts—mirroring the dislocation of McCahon’s lost hours. An exposed binding splits the volume into ‘day’ and ‘night’, physically embodying the passage of time and disorientation. The design resists linear reading, guiding the viewer through a deliberately unsettled visual and narrative journey. Careful pacing, minimal typography, and shifting layouts create a space where the act of reading mirrors the mystery it investigates.

This project makes a significant contribution to New Zealand’s cultural landscape by reframing a pivotal moment in art history through a contemporary lens. The Lost Hours extends McCahon’s legacy to new audiences while offering a fresh, multidisciplinary response to an event shrouded in ambiguity. It invites reflection on artistic process, memory, and the spaces between clarity and confusion. Through its fusion of painting, writing, and design, the project becomes both tribute and investigation—enriching art historical discourse and demonstrating how artists can reinterpret the past to illuminate the present.