The Artist

            ... before Australia

The New Zealand years:

John (Melvin) Webb was born in New Zealand, coming to Australia in 2002.

     "My early influences included:

• School of Paris: Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Georges Seurat (I painted a series as homage to his ' A Sunday Afternoon');
  
• Egon Schiele, Graham Sutherland, Pieter Breugel the elder;
• The Cobra group; and American painting of the 50s;
• Pre-historic cave painting of Europe and Australia;
• New Zealand artists: especially Ralph Hotere and Gordon Walters."

Webb also has architectural training, and has been inspired by modernist buildings all over the world. But much of his early inspiration came from the Pacifica culture of Auckland, including the stick-chart navigation methods of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific.