culture
respect and identity 

 Tshirt Design (2008)

Screen Print

Does your left foot try and change your right foot?

They are very similar, yet they are also opposite.

If the left foot forced the right foot to be left, 

would they work together?

If we respect our differences

we can walk forward

in a straight line

instead of 

round in 

circles.

...its a question of balance...

home
landscape
history
identity

inherent knowledge

 

 

                  Home (2008)

                  Oil on Canvas 520x710

A study into Don Binney's landscape and bird paintings, resulted in my own painting which by appropriating his style, is an attempt to join his conversation about landscape and identity.

At this stage I had been living in the Hawkes Bay for about 5 years.  The landscape here is dry and bare, a stark contrast to the green, lush Eastern Bay of Plenty from where I come.

Will the Hawkes Bay ever be my home?

On a tractor trip out to the Cape Kidnappers, I  reacted to the raw beauty of this landscape, and the birds relationship with it.  The gannets are born with the knowledge that this is home.  After migrating to Australia for their 'teenage' years, they return to the Cape, to settle down and raise a family.

Kind of like some people...

... home is where the heart is...

terror

error

                   T Error (2008)

                   Layered screen prints, tissue paper, indian ink 460x460

On a more serious note, our print brief required some exploration of ideas of dissent. 


I had kept this newspaper clipping from October 2007, about the ALLEGED Tuhoe terrorism.


It seemed to me that the only people who looked truly terrifying in this article, were the armed defenders squad. They were kitted out in full riot gear, and wielding some pretty hefty artillery.  


Was there an Error?
Was there some Terror?
Perhaps they couldn't see 

the wood

for the trees...

The faces of the 'accused', faces of innocent Tuhoe people, kaumatua and tamariki, blended into their land and  their trees by layers and layers of generations.

I can only imagine how this day impacted on the children and the elders of Ruatoki and Taneatua.


A movie has been made about this day, and will be part of the NZ Film Festival, showing at many places around New Zealand in July this year.

Here are some shorts from Utube, and a link showing where and when screenings are:

Operation 8 : Film Festival 2011

... respect ...

when is a box

not a box?

     Imagination (2008)

     MDF, 500x500

When the box can be anything you want....

Not long before I designed this play box, we had purchased a new TV which arrived, of course, in a very big box.  While we were busy trying to set the TV up, our children, aged 12 and 9, started playing in the box!  I was surprised at how easily they forgot that they were big kids now.

When they were much younger, I remember how they loved to play in boxes, often preferring the actual box to the present that was inside it.  

A box could be anything they wanted... an aeroplane, a truck, a hut...

This box explores the notion of the cardboard box, it's simplicity, and it's complexity. Basically a cube, the designs cut from the 2 triangular walls, are patterns that I have often doodled.  They are deliberately unspecific, to invite the imagination to decide what they are.  The shadows create still more versions of the patterns. 

The box is a scale model. The full size box would be big enough for children to climb in and out of.  Many boxes could be arranged together in different positions, to encourage the children to imagine the different spaces the box could be.

Interestingly enough, some 'big kids' below couldn't wait to play with the box even at this size!  The blackboard paint beckoned them to add their own mark.

          

... imagination, simplicity, complexity...

shelter

water

food
ancient
modern

Shelter, water, food (2008)

Raku Clay 46x18x6cm

The three things we need to exist.  The fundamentals of life.

In this project we were to look into an ancient culture, and from this develop a set of three sculptures relating to shelter,water and food.  The three sculptures were required to interlock in some way.

Looking into ancient Aztec art and patterns, I was fascinated by the geometric representations of nature.  The geometric designs were creatively connected, making  more designs on a larger scale, and inscribed into the stonework from which their shelters were constructed.  The Aztecs developed their own version of the koru, or spiral, which was stylised into a square formation.  


Cut and carved into my roof, water vessel and cooking platform, are patterns derived from a much more modern symbol of existence.

... essential ...

colours of cezzanne

Neil (2007)

Acrylic

On the inside (2007)

Acrylic

These paintings are a study of Cezzanne's style and colours.  We can learn from the masters of the past, and explore ways of taking their ideas in new directions.

... lessons from the past...

exquisite
ecology
evolving
endangered

extinct

                  Fossil (2007)

                  Perspex and Intron Print 16cm long

When I was asked to create a bug, why did I end up making a snail?  Is it another connection to the sea shells of my childhood?  Regarded as an annoying garden pest, do snails play an important role in the ecological landscape?  Here was a chance to recreate a garden pest into something whimsical...

My snail had developed a mutual relationship with a plant, to such an extent that one could not survive without the other.  A recipe for extinction.

At night the flowers in which the bugs lived would open up, and the bugs would glow and make eerie and exquisite musical sounds, to attract other bugs to pollinate the plant. 

The only record of the bugs existence, was found in this journal, clutched in the skeletal bones of a man's hand many,many years later.

Fossil (2007), pages from the journal  

The sounds of the snail had enchanted the explorer, to such an extent that he was unable to sleep, he was obssessed, he was mesmorised, and eventually he could no longer function, existing only to hear another night of song...

... the little things in life ...

sea and sand

memories of a child

                                        Three sisters (2007)

                                        Glazed Raku Clay  50 x 70 x 42cm each

I have often created works in sets of three, is this because I am one of three?

These three shell sculptures are representations of myself and my sisters, and of the many hours we spent wandering along the beach collecting shells with our Mum.  Creating these sculptures directly from our earth mother, Papatuanuku, seems so appropriate. 

Each shell was crafted from the same plaster mould.

They are all the same, and yet they are all different.

Depicting our individual strengths and characteristics, each shell has been adorned with different patterns:

Unaunahi - the fish scales

Kowhaiwhai - the generations

Patikitiki - the flounder

... Whanau, a bond of strength and protection ...