Maryrose Crook

ROCKHAPPENZ Public Collection

Maryrose Crook  —  an accomplished musician and visual artist from Christchurch, New Zealand .....

Brian and Maryrose Crook
Performing as The Renderers ..... On the Ba Da Bing! label ......

In the early 1980s, Maryrose Wilkinson and Brian Crook were flatting together on Knowles Street in the Christchurch suburb of Merivale.  They were both musicians and added Rebecca Shanahan and Robbie Stowell from the flat to form The Max Block who headed to Sydney for a spell before Brian and Maryrose regrouped in Christchurch as The Renderers.  Almost four decades on, The Renderers are still playing and their unique brand of alt-country has long had a big global audience, with the couple having been California-based for many years now.  Maryrose Crook (née Wilkinson) is best known as the frontwoman, vocalist, and co-founder of the influential Cantabrian country-folk and indie rock band The Renderers, which she formed alongside her husband and musical collaborator, Brian Crook.  An enduring figure in the Christchurch underground and post-punk music scenes since the 1980s, Maryroses' musical trajectory includes several notable projects the earliest of those musical musical ventures beginning in the early 1980s alongside Stuart Page and Bill Direen.  Next The Max Block  —  an art-space, avant-garde punk group formed with Brian Crook, Rebecca Shanahan, and Bob Stowell that released recordings in 1986.  The Renderers  —  was established in Christchurch, this long-running country-folk psych-rock outfit released music on acclaimed independent labels like Flying Nun Records, Siltbreeze, and Merge Records.  The Terminals featuring Maryrose on bass during the second incarnation of this legendary Christchurch underground staple during the early 1990s.

Beyond her distinctive vocals and guitar/bass work, Maryrose is a highly accomplished visual artist known for creating large-scale, surrealistic, and other-worldly landscape paintings.  She has exhibited heavily across New Zealand galleries, including the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.   She also released a solo album, Ghosts of Our Vegas Lives, in 2006.  Maryrose's husband is an influential guitarist and songwriter who has released solo music under his own name and the moniker Bible Black (such as the 2000 album Bathysphere).  He has also collaborated with groups like Flies Inside the Sun.  The Renderers performing in Los Angeles in 2014.  They had formed the band The Renderers in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1989.  The band has released music with New Zealand company Flying Nun Records and American labels Merge, Siltbreeze and Drag City, and has toured New Zealand twice as the backing band for American alt-folk star Bonnie Prince Billy.  In 1993 Maryrose moved to Port Chalmers and exhibited her first paintings in a café in Dunedin in 1995 - within a year she was invited to exhibit at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.  She is known for creating large-scale canvases depicting surreal, other-worldly landscapes and her work is held in public and private collections in New Zealand, Australia, Germany and the United States.  The 2011 Christchurch earthquake destroyed Crook's home in Diamond Harbour and she and her family moved to the United States the following year.  Based in Joshua Tree, California, the Crooks tour as The Renderers and Maryrose creates and exhibits paintings.