Seminar Four - September 2024

Meaning & Value

Statement

Unsettled

For millions of years, a Kahikatea forest had flourished on these swamp lands, the Hauraki Plains, and later provided fish, birds, roots, flax, and building materials for local Māori.

In 1910, my two great-grandfathers obtained land through the first Hauraki Plains ballot. They were allocated neighbouring blocks, unaware that their families would later unite through the marriage of my paternal grandmother and grandfather. Both blocks were located near the bottom of the Hauraki Gulf.

Researching the past and the details surrounding the transfer of land into settlers' hands makes for uncomfortable reading. In many cases, the land may be considered 'sold,' but legal manoeuvres and other pressures often played a significant role in shifting ownership.

Using my family history to depict the land and the transformation of the wetlands—acknowledging my ancestors, their difficult decisions, and the hard work they invested in settling in this country. Through my paintings, I aim to convey the story of how the land was altered and the lasting social and ecological impact of those actions.

Most works are watercolour on butter paper.
3 works are watercolour on Fabriano paper.

Crit #1 - Peers only
Strong photographic reference to history, agricultural. Lineage/ancestors.
Paper has been embedded in something. Connected to earth in some way. Muddy water has made its own tributory i.e. made its own path. Flow of landscape. Rivers brown, ocean blue.
People are closer to people in colour reference.
Curious how image reads out - precise marks, drips. Extending drips onto wall? bleeding beyond frame.
Swamp drained - presence, absence, removal - definitely coming through.
Map - lines of colonialism, man made control. Large scale map?
Gap in journal of Banks and Cook - overnight stay inland missing. Banks' comments re trees and drainage.
Butter paper, rippling direction. Water and land, ripple in paper. Dealing with land transformation as opposed to map works.
Fragility of paper. Overlapping images? Transparency, overlap = time.
White skies, contrast of land and sky. Land heavy. Previous 'pretty' landscapes, no questions - butter paper, more questions.
Paint directly on the wall? Size of butter paper available? Discomfort, awkwardness.
Labour involved, assumed privileged position.
Tall ships/masts pictured?
Bridget Williams - Amanda Thomas book, Imagining Decolonisation.
Holly Walker - artists, treatment of women and earth

Crit #2 with Te Ara Minhinnick
Different investigations read differently (butter paper works of family and land, maps of HP)
Historical, family, land, ancestors
Strong associations with something specific. Whenua and whanau
Dairy farming. Land worked and changed. Blue/brown shift in colour.
Attention to something.
Sepia tone - historic. Dusty feel to family portrait.
Geograhical nature of 'map'. demarcation of farmland.
Possibly distorted (mud soaked map painting).
Sold entity of family group. Slightly ominous.
Children brings in family idea. Chess set players lined up.
Question of whenua in the painting - does it connect us to the place?
Land/water as extra materials and way of ageing the paper.
Sequencing of images, archival feel.
Does the sepia still romanticise the small works?
Painting with river water as a media?
More movement in the blue toned images. More deliberate.
Sense of ownership in that the images are connected to you.
What/how do you decide to what to keep, what to eliminate? Box brownie limitations of camera aesthetic.
Romanticising in the use of whenua. 'Filter' idea through the use of colour. Reasons for the blue colour?
Scope for experimentation:
Large photocopies, degradation, distortion. Past history relationship to.
Ephemeral nature of butter paper. Pigs - brutal metaphor?
Relentlessness of agriculture. See Ruth Watson NZ artist and her work with maps. See Dane Mitchell and his work with petri dish samples from public art galleries.
Experimental idea around the smaller map image, soaked in mud. Larger map image is more conventional.
See Russ Flatt video work at The Dowse.
Conflicting histories and change.
What locates it here? It could be anywhere.
Land as an idea, impact.
What makes you a NZ artist?

Group session with Year 2 MFAs
Signifier is the horizon/land.
Negative space, reduction, cutting out of things missing?