Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2024 i Art New Zealand

Form is developed by means of light and shade; without these every object would appear flat. Mrs (Mary P.) Merrifield, Handbook of Light and Shade, 1855 English art critic John Berger described a drawing as 'an autobiographical record of one's discovery of an event—seen, remembered or imagined'.1 Drawing has also been credited with being the most direct and unmediated method of catching the creative process as it happened.2 It is probably the first of these definitions that was most applicable when the practice was brought to New Zealand. During the first few decades of organised settlement from Europe, the ranks of resident artists were dominated by amateurs who were frequently explorers, surveyors and soldiers. Drawing was an essential skill, for prior to the availability of the 'pencil of nature'—the camera—it…

Ans Westra. A Life in Photography by Paul Moon Massey University Press, Auckland 2024 MARY MACPHERSON For nearly 70 years, Ans Westra photographed the life of Aotearoa New Zealand and its people, taking an estimated 325,000 images. In his insightful biography, Dr Paul Moon makes the case for the contribution Westra's work has made to our sense of identity: 'Collectively, these are the closest the country has to a national photo album', he says. A large quantity of her images is publicly accessible, particularly through the National Library, meaning that her vision of New Zealand identity will be long-lasting. Small wonder we are curious about the single-minded maker of the photographs; the person, the vision she had of her image-making, and the social and cultural settings in which she worked.…

Auckland Michael Morley After the War Sumer, 6 March–13 April MICHAEL DUNN Michael Morley's exhibition of paintings at Sumer Gallery is called 'After the War', although he tells us nothing about this title. He may allude to his belief, found in the accompanying catalogue notes, that the optimism which came with the development of abstraction in the early twentieth century has eroded, leaving us in a kind of artistic limbo. His abstract paintings present as patches and bands of colour brushed onto the canvas in a direct, spontaneous way. They butt up against one another creating a sequence of contrasts and harmonies of colour, of tone and scale. We can see brush marks and edges where one application of paint and colour abruptly ends, and another begins. In all eight…

The 1988 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade was led by its first Indigenous float, lit up by Aboriginal dancer Malcolm Cole in drag as Captain Cook. American cultural theorist Eric Michaels, then in the last year of his life, teaching Media Studies at Griffith University Brisbane, wrote a report on the event. He does not dwell on this detail, but suggests that this fabulous upending of the foundation myth of the settler colony might count as 'the only politically correct public event of [Australia's] Bicentennial year'.1 The National Apology in 2008 was an important step in Australia reckoning with its past, but in the Australian Indigenous Voice referendum last year voters resoundingly rejected a proposed alteration to the Australian Constitution that would have recognised Indigenous Australians. That there…

Ian Scott made enough paintings to be the life's work of a dozen or more highly prolific artists. Indeed, within his oeuvre, there are such dissimilar series of paintings that many have been surprised to learn they were all by the same person. The sheer reach and ambition makes Scott an exceptional figure in late-twentieth-century (and a little bit of twenty-first century) New Zealand art history. And the intensity of his vision for a new kind of New Zealand painting puts him, in my book, at the top of the tree over that period. In the Milford Galleries exhibition, Ian Scott: New Realism 1966–1970, we see five paintings from the early part of Scott's career. During 1966 to 1967, he was at art school—'New Realism' was the title of his…

Don Abbott, Deputy Editor of Art New Zealand, is the author of Vivid: The Paul Hartigan Story and Elizabeth Rees: I Paint. Grant Banbury is an independent art consultant and art writer based in Christchurch. Tharron Bloomfiel is a curator and conservator based in Auckland. Malcolm Burgess is a Wellington-based arts writer and adviser. Jon Bywater is a Pākehā critic who teaches at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau. Michael Dunn is Professor Emeritus in Fine Arts and formerly Head of Elam and the Art History Department at the University of Auckland. He has written extensively on New Zealand art. Trish Gribben has known Warren Viscoe for nearly 60 years. Her most recent work has focused on art books for children, including a…

I never met Hamish Kilgour. I don't profess to an encyclopaedic knowledge of the music of The Clean or his wider musical catalogue. I make these admissions not for some critical impartiality, but because both the personality of Hamish Kilgour and his musical career are undeniable forces of I Go Side On, the exhibition of Kilgour's creative works at Pūmanawa, a community exhibition space inside Christchurch's historic, beleaguered, Arts Centre. Hamish Kilgour passed away in late 2022, aged 65. He left behind a legacy as one of Aotearoa's most cherished musicians. I Go Side On is a celebration of his life and creative output, a tribute to the artist's unique energy, influence, enthusiasm and generosity. With the exhibition title taken from a song by The Clean, the band Hamish Kilgour…

Maureen Lander (Ngāpuhi, Te Hikutu) uses Kemp House, New Zealand's oldest existing building, as a setting for an installation that explores events that took place some 200 years ago but continue to impact Māori lives. Through a combination of archival research, visits to museum collections and creative licence, Lander has retraced the motivations and journeys of Māori rangatira (chiefs). Built in 1822 and strategically positioned on a basin of the Waipekakoura River in Kerikeri, Kemp House is within a landscape that witnessed some of the earliest interactions between Māori and Pākehā. Lander places her works on the floors and walls of the former missionary residence and invites the viewer to imagine the conversations, decisions and actions that took place here and within the wider Bay of Islands. These works narrate…

Here is artist Bill Sutton, aged 60. Arguably at the height of his painting career. The slightly out-of-focus face confirms an impromptu snap, capturing the artist wearing a jersey, paisley cravat and jovial smile.1 Radiating warmth and generosity, I can envisage Sutton in conversation with the photographer. Commenting on Glenn Jowitt's approach to photography years later, a perceptive interviewer observed, 'you use the camera rather like a handshake'.2 Although Sutton fills the left half of the image, the location identifies the artist's professional working life outside his studio. The image was taken at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 1977 while Jowitt was a young student, at which time Sutton had been on the permanent staff for 28 years. Perhaps the unidentified figure darting off past Okeover…