In residence in Colombia

I am in Colombia at an art residency at Campos des Gutierrez until Christmas. The homestead is a 180 year old rammed earth building that was originally built at the centre of a coffee plantation. It is situated high in the mountains above the city of Medellin. The residency is hosted by painter and ceramicist Andrés Morzón-Aguirre, with help from Camilo Marulanda and a community of like minded artists and thinkers. An exhibition showcasing the work I have made while here alongside the work of NY Fulbright fellow Chris Woolston, and Colombian artist German Alzur will take place on the 10th of December at The Palace of Culture in the central city. There is much work to be done!

The Gutierrez homestead

Halloween street hanging

Local chorizo stand.. mmm tasty

The Palace of Culture where the exhibition will be held

More from 'You Are Here' at Bowen Galleries. 8-27 April 2013

Click here for exhibition profile at Bowen Galleries website

Weaving1, Weaving2, Weaving3
Vertical morse code reads as: 1 - Where are you at? 2 - You are here! 3 - What do you want?

Dreamcatcher1

 Dreamcatcher2 - sold

You Are Here. 8-27 April 2013. Bowen Galleries.

Dreamcatcher1 & Dreamcatcher2

Weaving1, Weaving2 & Weaving3 (decipherable vertical morse code messages)

Dreamcatcher1 (closeup)

Dreamcatcher1 & Dreamcatcher2 (showing how the night sky background is the one) 

Suspension/Place with Philippa Nielsen at Artstation, Auckland

Autumn: Call & Response @ Sculpture Park, Hamilton

I was chosen to be part of the Autumn exhibition Call & Response at the Sculpture Park at the Waitakaruru Arboretum near Hamilton. I reinstated my macrocarpa flagpole, this time with Flags for the Locals. The first flag flying is dedicated to the humble blackberry.

Big thanks to Kate Darrow & Kim Paton for selecting my work for one of five Ebbett Prestige Seed Funding Awards of $500, and of course thank you to Ebbett Prestige for supporting the exhibition, much appreciated!

Blackberry

Concept: Rather than being ‘unwanted’, the weed could be regarded from a Darwinian perspective as a winner of an evolutionary process. For arguments sake the attributes of the local weeds, Pampas, Blackberry and Gorse can be seen in a beneficial light – beauty, food source, shelter etc. Though in hindsight the introduction of Gorse into New Zealand was an ecological mistake, the protection it can give native seedlings in their early stages of growth during ecological re-colonising is a valuable attribute. These oppositional ideas draw an analogy to and describe the cultural conundrum I am faced with as I address my need for pride in my cultural heritage as descendent of colonial immigrants. 

NOW @ Second Storey: August 2011

My first solo show, NOW, was held at Second Storey: an artist-run space on Karangahape Road, Auckland, NZ.

A Flag That Has Now Written On It flies atop the building next door to Second Storey.

A CCTV security camera watches from across the road and wirelessly transmits the video signal back across to a receiver in the window of Second Storey.

The receiver passes the video signal through to the back room via a long cable.

In the back room the projector shows a static-harassed image of a pole that holds aloft the intermittently billowing flag.

In the front room Monument hangs, the tails of the vertical flags going with the lie of the floor.

(A Flag With Now Written On It atop the La Gonda Building on K Rd.)

PRINT SEASON: February 2011

A duo show with Rosemarie Nightingale, in St Paul St's Gallery III, Auckland New Zealand...
& my first show after my Masters exhibition.

Home Away from Home heralds a moment of the 'connective synthesis' that underlies the methodology of my practice. I can't recall how the two elements came to mind, but it was at seperate moments; the timing of a deadline being the final weld. The green canvas tarpaulin was the floor to my grandparents' caravan awning decades ago, travelling the length and breadth of the countryside. And since used for many other purposes - painting drop-sheet, trailer cover, and for the last few years living in the back of Dad's jet boat, serving as the picnic mat on the stony beaches of Lake Wanaka.
The lonely trees have been transplanted from the back blocks of the West Coast of Auckland, my second home. The stamp of the colonial landscape is dominant, and the shifty nature of being descended (so recently) from colonial movers and shakers is brought to the fore.

This work is an example of the unusual demands I put on the high-tech (only one in the SOuthern Hemisphere) digital fabric printing machine at the Textile & Design Lab at AUT University, Auckland, NZ. http://www.tdl.aut.ac.nz/

The flat bed is definitely not the 3.2m x 2m size of the tarp, so it was printed in 3 parts and (almost) immaculately lined up with digital precision, proudly leaving it very hard to spot the joins. The close up image shows the original stamp on the tarpaulin, and names its point of origin, my home town, Dunedin.

Two video works, Never Ending Sunset I (Otago Hinterland) and Never Ending Sunset II (West Coast AK), serve to aid contemplation of where it is that I am and have come from. Because 'if you don't know where you're from, you won't know where you're going', (which might be a hip hop quote?). The videos are edited to first run forward for approximately a quarter of an hour, then are seamlessly joined to the same shot playing backwards, which is then looped for an endless experience of blissful dusk.

Rosemarie's work sat beautifully alongside mine. The map is of Mt Ruapehu and the National Park. The casting 'prints' of rocks are made of rocks from with the park, but of course aren't allowed to be removed.

The Trouble With Being A Proud Pakeha

My art practice is motivated by a realisation that I have been deeply naïve about the cultural realities of my country.  Moving from the South Island to the North Island was the first step towards understanding what it means to ‘be’ and ‘become’ Pakeha, and what this can mean in a global post-colonial context. Parallel to ongoing cultural research, I visually document North and South to allow motifs and signifiers to come to the foreground; Objects materialize from this process, operating as ‘souvenirs’ to moments of discovery. Essentially, my art practice applies a ‘soft activist’ approach to the colonial condition of overwriting history. These images are from my Master of Art & Design (Visual Arts) exhibition held at St Paul St Gallery, Auckland, in November 2010.