Tag: art

Take a dose of art

Feeling rather depressed by newspaper articles today. One is about working people struggling to pay their bills and to keep warm over winter, and another, from the Washington Post, records the dire effects on people in the US who have lost their public service jobs. I’ve heard that Wellington is quiet these days, with fewer public servants about and, with today being Budget Day, I worry about what further cuts will be made by our government. An elderly man in the first news article commented that this government ‘lacks compassion’. Coincidentally, I’m part-way through a Listener article subtitled ‘How to cope when the world is going crazy’.

Somewhat cheered after Singing for Pleasure this morning at the WEA, I hoped a dip into art might lift my gloom further. This particular piece intrigued me. I noticed it from two flights up when I heard running water and looked for the source. It was in the space under the stairs.

Fountain in Transit by Yona Lee
Art Deco influences, perhaps?

From below, I was able to investigate other features, including the lighting, but also the way the water is directed to each part of the installation. It reminds me of all the plumbing options we considered when renovating the bathroom. I like its playfulness.

The exhibition about our relationship with the land was too sombre, so I revisited the Francis Shurrock exhibition. Traumatised by his World War I experiences, he came to NZ in the 1920s and taught and inspired his students at Canterbury College School of Art – even introducing Morris Dancing. I like this Art Deco piece he did in Oamaru stone, and the bronze sculpture of writer Frank Sargeson by one of his students, Alison Duff. Across the street from the Gallery an Art Deco-inspired block of flats caught my eye.

Perhaps the government will decide art galleries are a waste of space too. But, on further thought, that is unlikely; too many rich people invest in art. Monetary value seems to be what counts when, clearly, art has a value more ephemeral than that. Now I’ve depressed myself again.

Views from the sea

Rakiura

The artist featured in the exhibition Encountering Aotearoa at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū is Cora-Allan Lafaiki-Twiss (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tumutumu, Nuie – Liku, Alofi). I am fascinated by her work. She went by boat around Aotearoa to look at the land and sea. In part, this was to see the land as the crew of the Endeavour might have seen it – with Tupaia and his assistant Taiata on board – as they circumnavigated and mapped the land. Cora-Allan asked her pāpā, Kelly Lafaiki (Nuie – Liku, Alofi) to accompany her as assistant on the journey. Videos screen on a wall, documenting the journey and the making of the work.

Frames around many of the paintings remind me of boat windows with their rounded edges and toughened glass. The artist uses hiapo, traditional mulberry bark paper often known as tapa cloth. It was soaked in sea water in each place a work was created. I looked at the back of the hanging paintings and could see where the sheets of paper had been joined and I could appreciate its texture and thickness.

Hiapo, mulberry bark paper, is used for the art works

The pigments used are from the whenua (land). So the making of the work is as fascinating as the paintings themselves. In a glass case, are some sketchbooks and a marvellous wooden toolkit which folds out, with a sliding drawer in the base and a leather handle. This would have been ideal when working from a boat.

A panoramic sea view on panels stretches across the gallery space on a wooden frame.

In the entrance to the exhibition, these islands seem to float on the grey/blue background.

Large hanging paintings lead you further in. The details are intricate and significant, with traditional and contemporary elements, and the photos don’t do them justice.

Maunga (mountain), Moana (sea), Whenua (land) and Waka (boat)

I look forward to visiting the exhibition again.

Post Script: I particularly liked the painting Rakiura. Later, I realised I was wearing a Glowing Sky jersey which seemed appropriate being a brand named for Rakiura (Stewart Island) with its views of the southern lights or aurora australis.

Women as creators and artists

Ngaio Marsh Painting by Olivia Spencer Bower

The four session course Women as Creators and Artists at the WEA finished yesterday. I expected an academic approach. The handouts had that, but mostly we had an immersive experience, visiting the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū across the road and talking about women’s lived experiences.

From Housewives of Art by Sally Swain

The course featured the work of New Zealand women artists over time. We were taken into one of the stores behind the scenes of the Gallery to look at the work of various artists involved in the Canterbury Group. Two curators as well as our tutor contributed knowledge and anecdotes about the artists, how they worked together and influenced each other.

Representations of the Canterbury landscape

The last two sessions featured current artists. These were notable for their ethnic diversity as well as their approaches to their art. Some of these exhibitions were ones I would have passed by as ‘not my thing’ and I realise I’m a ‘grazer’ of art. The course helped me to look again. One installation featured cat’s cradle-inspired structures in luminous, almost neon, string. Subsequently, when sunlight lit up an intricate spider’s web running from my dressing table to a shelf I thought of that installation and marvelled at the spider’s skill. As soon as the sun moved, the web became invisible.

Yesterday, we looked at women’s contemporary art on the ground floor of the gallery, beginning with a large hooked carpet and seat which depict the Canterbury landscape. Spring is heart-break, a line from an Ursula Bethell (1874-1945) poem, was a theme which artists depicted in a variety of media. Often natural materials were used such as driftwood and kelp. I thought of the driftwood structures people have made on the beach and lakeside I visit.

Artist: Heidi Brickell

I thought of Mahuika, keeper of fire, who produces fire from her fingernails in the manipulated photograph below. Here, she seems to be about to light her cigarette. Looking more closely, I observed the mis-match (haha) of images – the stiff curtain against a plush replica couch, on which is superimposed the woman with silvered hair and painted thick eyebrows fashionable with young women now, wearing a clumsily-made formal (bridesmaid’s?) 1980s dress. She has a calculating look on her face, and is she making a rude gesture? Revenge is one of the themes of the series of photos of which this is one. Ancient power defying modern expectations of femininity could be one interpretation.

The Breath of Uru-te-ngangana (atua of light) by Tia Ranginui (1976-)

A series of large paintings showed skewed perspectives, nightmarish characters and odd combinations which “signal a desire to create a new, messier world by turning our current one inside out” according to the accompanying notes. I didn’t know how to express that in my own words!

Artist: Priscilla Rose Howe (1994-)

Our tutor encouraged us to volunteer as gallery guides which involves three months of training. She told us that you learn by teaching (as I know) and reminded me of the heading of our first handout: “Art, Looking at, Seeing, Understanding”. Probably, on my own, I would have passed the Priscilla Rose Howe paintings with a bit of a shudder. Now I feel braver to look, see and try to understand.

Our course finished with these statements, which our immersive experience has shown.

Art is a product of its time and place.

By the inclusion of women, art and society has changed dramatically in the last 100 years.

Art, especially for women, is useful.

Our tutor was Diane Swain