Tag: history

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Rooms Volume Two

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Rooms Volume Two

By Jane Ussher and Douglas Lloyd Jenkins

Massey University Press

RRP $90.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

In reviewing Jane Ussher’s previous publication “Rooms”, I noted that New Zealanders have a fascination with homes and interiors evidenced by the sales of numerous magazines on architecture and house interiors. The former mainly deal with the forms, spaces and structures of building with the other focused on objects, decoration and the use of the spaces.

Both these elements are brought together in the new book “Rooms Volume Two” by photographer Jane Ussher and writer Douglas Lloyd Jenkins which looks at the range of interior spaces in New Zealand homes from the small villa through to grand mansions.

It is an eclectic collection which is a mixture of historical, social and aesthetic enquiry. These are not all images of “home beautiful”, but rather ordinary, lived-in homes but lived in with a sense of the interiors reflecting something of the owners rather than reflecting current design trends.

Oriental Bay Appartment, Wellington

The interiors range across New Zealand, from early nineteenth century houses to modern apartments. In some cases the architects or interior designer is noted as are  some of the owner / collectors.

We get glimpses of the interiors of homes by early architects such as William Gummer along with more contemporary architects such as John Scott, Edward Mahoney, Claude Megson and Andrew Patterson.

Jane Ussher says “as I progressed with the photography for the new book it became evident that the majority of houses I was invited into belonged to collectors. Often these treasures had been amassed over decades and they often became the subject or a wonderful addition to the images I was creating.”

“The common denominator was that each space is unique and has been created by individuals with a passion for curating an environment that doesn’t reflect current trends but instead reflects their individual passions”.

Most of the owner / collectors have withheld their names but some of them are happy to be associate with their dwelling including Terry Stringer, Denis O’Connor and Anna Bidwell.

The interiors are filled with a roll call of famous New Zealand artists including – Max Gimblett Richards Killeen, Pamela Wolfe, Peter Robinson, Bill Hammond, Tony Fomison, John Pule, Ralph Hotere, Gordon Walters, Shane Cotton, Gretchen Albrecht, and Milan Mrkusich.

All the interiors and the art works have a sense of being a lived collection, often using every availed square metre of wall space. They are also collections assembled over a long period.

Terrace House,

Some of the collections are focussed or thematic. The Herne Bay villa features historic works spanning more than two hundred years – an image of a reclining Māori Woman based on a photograph by Thomas Pringle around 1900, an 1880 painting of the Pink and White Terraces by John Philemon and Māori carving of a pataka repatriated from the UK there is also a John Weeks painting of a Morocan subject. More contemporary work can be seen with an Alan Miller photograph and a Tony Fomison portrait.

North Shore House, Auckland

Many of these collectors have substantial collections of other objects, ceramics, fabrics, Chinese ceramics and turned wooden objects There is a collection of the work of Mirek Smisek and Ernest Shufflebotham’s who both worked at the Crown Lynn Pottery and there are collections of Maritime paintings and ancestral portraits.

With some of the interiors it is obvious that the owner / collector has had the house designed around the artworks

Some rooms are included because of their use of colour, dramatic contrasts and refined placement of furniture. Other demonstrate the careful architectural design elements while others show how sheer abundance of objects and detail can make an impression.

The Wellington House of Anton Hart and Samantha Turner features a range of artists -sculpture by Terry Stringer, Paul Dibble, Jeff Thomson and Glen Hayward, paintings by Max Gimblett, Euan MacLeod and a Dilana rug by Richard Killeen

A North Shore House owned by an international curator and art advisor as a collection of local and intentional art. There is a Rietveld chair, a screenprint by James Rosenquist, work by Keith Haring and Martin Creed. The New Zealand works include Ralph Hotere, Elliot Collins and a pile of small works by John Reynolds

Jane Ussher’s photography makes all the interiors shine. While the owners have chosen the placements of the art works and the furniture and flowers, Ussher has composed her images to make the best of each of the rooms om each image is an artwork themselves.

Some images like those of the gallery space of the St Clair House, have a stark minimalism which highlights the architecture, carpet, furniture, light and artworks which includes work by Imogen Taylor, Luke Willis Thompson Peter Robinson and Sandrine Pelletier.

Ussher notes about the essay for the book “John Walsh wrote the essay for the first Rooms book. He is such a great architecture writer and I found his insights into my practice so interesting… Douglas Lloyd Jenkins is such a design expert and he has lived in a series of amazing houses filled with objects that his collector’s instincts lead him to. His essay is so instructive — it puts what people are doing in these rooms into historical perspective. Not everyone can draw a convincing design line from Oscar Wilde to Aotearoa, but Douglas can!”

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Shane Cotton: Moerewa — Liquid Sleep

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Shane Cotton: Moerewa — Liquid Sleep

Anthony Byrt

Auckland University Press

RRP $89.99

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Anthony Byrt’s new book “Shane Cotton: Moerewa — Liquid Sleep” is more than a biography of one of the country’s foremost artists. Byrt’s Northland whakapapa links him to that of the artist with his documentation and analysis of the artist’s life making the book more of a personal survey and discovery.

Byrt dispenses with the usual early biographical history of the artist (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Rangi, Ngāti Hine, Te Uri Taniwha) and his family, beginning the book when Cotton is an almost fully fledged artist.

He traces out the more than thirty years of the artist’s practice with Cotton developing an evolving visual language through which he has confronted his personal, tribal and national histories.

In this voyage into Te Tai Tokerau he deals with the relationships, landscapes and histories that are the basis of Cotton’s thinking and his art. We enter the world of Kororāreka and Hongi Hika, of mission stations and religious ideas which shaped Māori society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Byrt is skilful in providing insights and analysis which help us make sense of the paintings and the thinking of the artist.

He presents Cottons life through six chapters which hint at the artist as being some sort of latter-day prophet, dividing his life and work into six approaches – The Covenant, Mission Station, The First Book, The World Turned Over, White Hole and The Return.

He shows how Cotton has progressively mined the history and myth of Māori along with its intersection with European colonisation, with images that recall stories referencing historical and mythical figures, western and Māori knowledge as well as locations.

Byrt delves into the artist’s work showing the various influences, appropriations, inspirations and interests which have helped shape the artists’ works – artist such as Dick Frizzell and Gordon Walters and his diverse interests such as gaming and gang patches.

His early sepia-coloured paintings in which he linked landscape, symbols and history, Māori Folk Art, Op and Pop as well as Biblical texts explored his thinking about art and the early history of New Zealand.

Shane Cotton, Black Bird (Part I), 2005

Since then, his work has featured brightly coloured targets shapes, preserved heads dramatic cliffs and flower paintings, these works hinting at human and mythic histories.

More recently his works have connected with his living in Northland and revisiting some of his earlier work and the notions of colonialism and cultural exchange.

With his very recent work the artist could be seen as entering his Fauvist period with many of the paintings having the features of those early twentieth century artists who employed simplified shapes along with intense and juxtaposed colours.

Shane Cotton, Super Radiance, 2024

With works such as “Super Radiance” he has appropriated the Augusts Earle painting “Distant View of the Bay of Island”. Depicting a Māori with a taiaha who is acting as a guide through the landscapes of the North. These works connect with his (and the authors) living in Northland and revisiting some of his earlier work with the notions of colonialism and cultural exchange.

Shane Cotton, Things behind the Sun, 2021 (Left) Blue, Black Korona 2020 – 21 (Right)

There are several works of Cotton’s Toi Moko works where the tattooed and preserved Upoke Tuhtuhi Māori heads reference conflict, trade, and repatriations. The tattoo lines tracing out genealogy are linked to the notion of neural connections, knowledge links and computer networks.

Byrt writings about the artists’ iconography provide clarity and depth to our understanding of the artist’s work exploring how the artist adds many dimensions to our understanding to the art and our history.

The fully illustrated book provides an excellent visual history of the artist’s work with some double page spreads which all help in providing an appreciation of the artist’s work.

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Wellington artworks added to register of 20th Century Public Art

John Daly-Peoples

Matt Pine, Cone Piece. Whanganui War Memorial

Thirty-one Wellington artworks have recently been added to a national register of 20th Century Public Art which at present has more than 500 listed artworks.

Finding, researching, documenting, promoting, and where possible saving, Aotearoa New Zealand’s 20th Century public art is the mission of Public Art Heritage Aotearoa New Zealand (PAHANZ).

To this end the Wellington City Council supported PAHANZ in researching and listing a further 31 artworks from throughout Wellington City.

These works have now been added to the Trust’s website https://PublicArt.nz, an online register of artworks made, and installed in public space in New Zealand between 1900-1999.

Alongside the artworks, the website also provides biographies of artists, art collectives, and organisations associated with these works. With the Council’s support, 17 new artist biographies and associated organisations/people pages have been added.

Milan Mrkusich B J Ball 35 Graham St Auckland

Sue Elliott, co-director of PAHANZ said “many 20th Century public artworks have been destroyed, covered over, or simply lost. Others remain undocumented and at risk due to a lack of public knowledge of their significance and value. Our website is New Zealand’s first national register of these cultural treasures; launched with 380 works in mid-2023 and now grown to well over 500 works.

“Thanks to funding from Wellington City Council’s Public Art Panel, we have researched a further 31 works for uploading. These works were prioritised to reflect works that were at risk; those that were likely to gain category 1 or 2 significance from our independent assessment panel; and those that increased the diversity of artists already represented on the database,” she said.

The database can be searched by a number of factors including: the artwork, the artist, its location, date or medium.

The works that have just been uploaded include 24 works that are still publicly accessible, three works that are now in storage, and four destroyed/decommissioned works.

Neil Dawson, Ferns Civic Square , Wellington

The 31 Wellington works include works by public art heroes such as: Jim Allen; Doreen Blumhardt; Roy Cowan; Robyn Kahukiwa; Para Matchitt; Beverley Shore-Bennett; Michael Smithers; Toi Te Rito Maihi and many others. They can be found dotted about the city in: The CBD; Botanic Gardens; Te Ngākau Civic Square; Karori; Mt Victoria; Miramar; Thorndon and Newtown.

Co-director, Bronwyn Holloway-Smith said: “The uploading of these works in Wellington is particularly timely with the revitalisation of Te Ngākau Civic Square and soon to be re-opened Te Whare Wakarauika Wellington Town Hall, both of which are important sites of public art. Simultaneously, we’ve also submitted applications for Heritage New Zealand classifications for both the City-to-Sea Bridge and Harbour Plaza, and the Michael Fowler Centre with the important works contained within this building.

“By documenting, promoting, and seeking protections for Aotearoa New Zealand’s 20th Century public art we’re highlighting the value of these creative contributions to public space, and raising awareness about the stories they embody to ensure this important aspect of our culture is accessible to future generations of Kiwis.”

With over 500 works now listed on the register, PAHANZ still has much to do, with a further 1067 works to be researched that include accessible works alongside those that have been lost/hidden/destroyed, or whose current status is not confirmed. These include a further 89 works in the Wellington region that are awaiting auditing and listing.

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Ōtepoti Dunedin Architecture: A Walking Guide

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Ōtepoti Dunedin Architecture

A walking guide

John Walsh and photographer Patrick Reynolds, 

Massey University Press

$39.99

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Ōtepoti Dunedin Architecture, a walking guide is the fourth book in the series of handy pocket guides to New Zealand city architecture and is the most extensive yet. It features more than 130 Dunedin buildings in seven, self-guiding walks that range from the university district right across the city to the southern cemetery area and out to Port Chalmers.

With easy-to-follow maps, a well informed and engaging text by well-known architecture writer John Walsh and images by architectural photographer Patrick Reynolds, 

The three previous books (Wellington. Auckland and Christchurch architecture) have proven to be invaluable and have all gone into second editions which is a major achievement for such niche publications.

The Dunedin book follows the outline of the previous books with a brief history of the city, its growth and the development of its architecture. As with previous books Walsh writes clearly about the buildings, placing them clearly with in the history of architecture in New Zealand.

R A Lawton is given considerable space in the book as the architect of the First Church of Otago and Trinity Methodist Church as well as numerous other buildings including Larnach Castle making him an architect of great significant in the Dunedin area. He designed an estimated 46 church buildings, 21 banks, 134 houses, 16 school buildings, 13 hotels, 15 civic and institutional buildings, and 120 commercial and industrial buildings. Virtually all the building were built in the Dunedin area.

Trinity Methodist Church

There are other notable inclusions such as F W Petre who has numerous buildings to his name in the city and he designed three of New Zealand’s cathedrals, each distinguished by a different architectural style: St Joseph’s Cathedral in Dunedin, the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Wellington and the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Christchurch.

Ted McCoy is one contemporary architect whose work features in the book with several works in the University precinct – the Richardson Building, the Archway Lecture Theatres and University College along with the impressive semicircular apse of St Pauls Cathedral

For the most part these are tours of New Zealand commercial and public buildings but there are a few domestic dwellings as well such Olveston.

In each of the tours we encounter some of the most important architectural gems of the city. So, in the City Centre Tour we encounter the Dunedin Railway Station and the First Church of Otago (“the most impressive of all nineteenth New Zealand churches”).

Toitu. The Josephine Foyer

In the City South tour there is the Warren and Mahoney (with Aukaha) Ōtepoti, Toito Early Settlers Museum (a combination of three architectural styles) and the South City Substation (“one of the best buildings in a city stuffed with Gothic style churches as well as classically ordered banks and Renaissance inspired warehouses.

City West tour features Speight Brewery (Massive without being gaunt, and solid without being drab) and St Dominics Priory (the largest unreinforced mass-concrete building in the Southern Hemisphere) and Olveston (a memento of Dunedin’s Golden Age)

The City Northeast tour includes The University Precinct with its many nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century buildings and the Winter Gardens (first botanic garden building in New Zealand).

The other tours to the east of the city have fewer inclusions but some of the highlights are Larnachs Castle, the Bank of New Zealand in Port Chalmers which was the studio space of Ralph Hotere for many years and the English Gothic style Iona Church overlooking the settlement.

The book emphasises the work of some of the individual architects such as Edmund Anscombe, R A Lawon, Ted McCoy and F W Petre along with the architecture practices of Mandeno & Fraser, Mason, Wales and Miller and White who designed a number of the important building in the city.

There are a couple of instances where major artists are featured with their artworks included as decoration b. These include Jim Allen’s six panel frieze on the Arts Building, Simon Kahn’s dramatic facade on the EBB Hotel and Oliver Gross’s Cenotaph and the frieze on the Hercus building.

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John Pule at Gow Langsford

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

John Pule. The first incision I saw I dreamt no more

John Pule

The first incision I saw I dreamt no more

Gow Langsford, Onehunga

Until September 5

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The catalogue to John Pule’s latest exhibition “The first incision I saw I dreamt no more” has an introductory poem / note by the artist about the exhibition

“my poetry comes from soil

The exertion of ants, the mucus of worms

The last evenings of caterpillars

The froth of centipedes”

It is an acknowledgment that the art works are based on natural forms and his incisions or enquires into the natural world with works such as the eponymous work on paper is like a page from a scientific notebook with drawings of natural forms, the flora and fauna of the artists environment – fish, plants, insects and centipedes. Theses drawings can also be seen as microscopic views and diagrams of biologicals structures.

These references to the natural world and the plant forms that provide shelter also hint at a parallel world of mythological creatures and lands.

Johnh Pule. Tau Po Haaku Tau Aho Haaku

His dramatic approach can be seen in works like “Tau Po Haaku Tau Aho Haaku” ($95,000) where the plant forms which dominate are based on local vegetation but on a larger scale become like a mythological wonderland – somewhere between fantasy and microscopicscans of cellular forms. There are also reference to the natural world with a lake in “Are we able to live here” ($95,000) or a group of Lilliputian scale group of people in “We will always begin here” ($95,000).

The artists work draws on the physical, topographic and historic, merging them, with social, political and personal insights and visions. The work contains much of the artists previous iconography but have a greater immediacy given the artists recent responses to in his ancestral land.

The works are in a sense both a discovery and rediscovery of the land and its mythologies as well as the artists own journeys.

Of his time spent in Niue producing these works he says “I rode my bike each day through the canopy forest from Liku to Alofi, through rain or shine, winds, storm, or calm. The road is bordered with plantations, forests, tracks into the interior. Big blue skies and clouds, shadows of trees stretch across the makatea (limestone) road. Returning to Liku every evening, the sun is warm on my back.  These paintings and drawings are about that particular time.”

His works have previously dealt with his growing up in New Zealand, his discovery of traditional Niuean art, and developing his own iconography. This had led to him dealing with wider issues of colonialism, the impact of Christianity as well as the mythology and spirituality of Niue.

With several of the works in the exhibition the artist has created pathways which reach into the foliage much like the trails that that the artist has ridden on his bike but also the pathways which reach back in time. These pathways and journeys can also be seen as metaphors for the artist’s own physical, spiritual and aesthetic journeys.

They are analogous to the songlines of aboriginal art as well as the lines of musical compositions, imagining the way the sounds evolve, carrying a narrative expressing joy. sorrow and wonderment.

The foliage depicted is at once colourful and local as well as surreal and mythological – a portrayal of Pule’s Niue as well as an imagined paradise.

John Pule. Niu Tilani, Takanoa Okalana

Other works such as “We are waiting for them” ($28,000) “Niu Tilani, Takanoa Okalana” ($28,000) feature plans, grids and designs – locating islands, stars, measuring winds and sea currents, all ways of comprehending the environment

David Eggleton provides an essay to the show which provides an overview of the artist’s work with insights into the artist’s work and perceptive observations such as –

“The paintings are transformative in their poetic intensity, maintained by the deft juxtaposition of various intense hues, which, like lava flows, have pooled and puckered into glossy skeins and skins – the oil-based enamels slathered on in virtuoso fashion, or worked around with brush and pen and rag. Here, in these dense, mirage-like gardens, the shining plants have taken on the powers of sorcery or enchantment. They are part of a fantastic botanical order, not necessarily benign, that over-arches the anonymous, small-scale human figures depicted. And we too as spectators bearing witness are enfolded, or perhaps embraced, by the forking tree limbs, the fleshy leaves, the many-seeded climbing vines.”

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The Queen’s Nanny: Broken confidences

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

The Queen’s Nanny
By Melanie Tait
Tadpole Theatre Productions
Director Simon Prast
Set John Parker
Lighting & Sound Gareth Evans and Geoff Evans
Costume Robyn Fleming
With Anna Julienne, Laura Hill, Jack Buchanan

Pumphouse Theatre, Takapuna
Ends 24 May

Reviewer Malcolm Calder
15 May 2026

I had a lovely little evening out at The Queen’s Nanny last night.

But first a very brief history lesson.

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, initially Duchess of York, became King’s Consort in 1936 when her husband the Duke of York – known as ‘Bertie’ to intimates – ascended to the British throne as King George VI.

Throughout her life, she became an increasingly popular figure with the British – she and Bertie cutting a dashing swathe through English society when younger, Elizabeth devising outrageous cocktails and an impeccable dress sense, while her husband did his best to keep up as he somewhat trepidatiously stuttered his way to the throne. Elizabeth’s seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public during WW2 and took on a life of its own afterwards. Privileged, eccentric and outrageous on occasion, she somehow connected with the people. I have never quite worked out why – but she did. No question.

Australian playwright Melanie Tait spans much of this period with The Queen’s Nanny, a tale of young Scots child psychologist Marion Crawford who became a governess to the royal couple’s then young two daughters initially for six months and eventually in a tenure that was to last seventeen years.

Crawford, or ‘Crawfie’ as both knew her, became the intimate companion of the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. She become a trusted servant of the family and her service continued until Princess Elizabeth’s marriage in 1947, two months after Crawford’s own wedding that she had postponed for 16 years to serve the family.

So she then wrote a book about bringing up the two royal princesses, used her own name and was rather well paid. The Great British Reading Public loved her words and they sold rather well. Extremely well in fact. So did American readers who lapped them up like hot cakes. I mean to say … sensational revelations, how could they not!

But Crawfie had made something of a colossal blunder. She had omitted to ask permission from the now Elizabeth Queen Mother to do so. Who took exception to them. And that sets the scene for Tait’s play.

Crawfie was cast aside. Ignored and ostracised by the royals and treated like some kind of highly contagious, self-seeking, colonial leper. Y’know, the kind that feature in tabloids or in social media everywhere these days. How outrageous. How dreadful. How could she !

These events are explored with impressive economy by playwright, Melanie Tait, with a cast of only 3. Or maybe 15 or so if you include all the characters played by Jack Buchanan. He slides easily and quite believably through them : everything from an Australian journo (‘you’re assigned to the royals desk, son’), to a butler, to Crawfie’s husband and even to a 7-y-o Princess Eizabeth. Importantly, his characters provide an essential element in the structure of the play – giving the two prime protagonists something to bounce their lines off and providing both context and location. He does so admirably.

However the true strength of the play lies in what is not said. And Simon Prast once again handles this with subtlety and nuance. Backed up with John Parker’s simple set that uses projected moving visuals to convey location, time, space and movement. Quite effective on the small Pumphouse stage I thought.

Anna Julienne gives us an entirely believable Crawfie. Humble, dedicated and loving although childless herself, living a life that has been shaped by the family she has spent so many years tending and caring for. Selfless one might say. She aged the character remarkably well and her and her command of accents matched the say she aged the character.

I think I was looking for a little more bitterness in her Crawfie towards the end but perhaps her ritualised daily preparation of the afternoon tea and then waiting by the window on the road to Balmoral sure in her own mind that the young Queen would stop her landrover and partake of the scones said that far more poignantly.

Many years later my own father used to describe the time he met a somewhat bewildered older woman on an upper floor of a New Zealand hotel, asking in a stentorian voice when the lift was going to be fixed, where the stairs were located and was the bar open. Yes, slightly bumptious he said, with a definite presence and sense of entitlement, but he was more concerned she had addressed him as ‘boy’. That recollection probably coloured my view of Laura Hill’s Queen Mother (Elizabeth if you will).

She was exactly the Queen Mother I have always imagined, with an inimitable on-stage presence, an impish sense of humour and a superior view of the rest of the world with never a hint that she was anything but right in everything she did, thought and said.

For a time I wondered what Melanie Tait was trying to say with this play. Was she having a go at those with a worldview that is one hundred percent insensitive to others? Was she endeavouring to comment on the entrenched (to this day) British class system? Or that wealth speaks (perhaps one might substitute contemporary American attitudes and behaviours today)? Or maybe that there are social iniquities and we should simply accept them? Or personal loyalty? Or maybe the vastly changed mores of contemporary society? Or was Crawfie actually the saint many apparently believed ?

Perhaps all of these and a few more tossed in as well.

The Queen’s Nanny is not a world-shattering play, but this production is definitely a lovely little evening out.


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Zines: a comic version of NZ subculture’s history

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Zines NZ: From punk to present

Bryce Galloway

Massey University Press

RRP $55.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

One of the almost unrecognised literary / artistic areas of New Zealand culture has been the zine.

Zines, a corruption of magazines or fanzines are non-commercial, self-published, small-circulation booklets, often produced by hand or photocopied in limited editions of often only a few hundred copies. They are derived from anti-establishment, punk-rock music, and other activist cultures, providing a platform for personal expression, niche topics, and marginalized voices.

Chris Knox, Jesus on a stick

Even though the zine in New Zealand has been widespread there has been no serious writing about the form. Until now. Bryce Galloway’s “Zines NZ: Punk to present” is written by a zine devotee and is packed with hundreds of images of zine covers and spreads, most of which charm with lopsided collaged energy and all of which possess a singular vision. Zines are so often ephemeral and elusive, and this book’s tribute to so many rich and distinctive voices ensures that their history is not lost.

Some of the early names like Barry Linton and Dylan Horrocks who were major forces early on are mentioned along with others who helped establish the numerous outlets which has seen a plethora of voices over the past forty years.

Galloway says the impetus for the book was largely personal, having been a zine creator himself

“I was interested in finding the thread from today’s plethora of zinefests back to the punk rock zines of early 80s Aotearoa. In 2015 I wrote a rather subjective history of 21st century zines in Aotearoa. I released this as issue 56 of Incredibly Hot Sex with Hideous People, also presenting it at pop culture and bibliographic conferences. I was thinking, who’s qualified, who could I commission to research and write the earlier part of Aotearoa’s zine history? Eventually I decided I should just take the job on myself.”

He acknowledges that the zine has been side-lined by the art/ publishing/ library world. “I’m sure they’ve been looked down upon, but many in the zine scene wouldn’t have it any other way. For all those who celebrate the growth in this media, there’s others who see the shift from scrappy punk zines and zinefests in community halls to zinefests in major galleries and the like as evidence that zines have lost their edge. I don’t think that’s true but there’s something to be said for the aesthetic challenge made by your scrappy punk zines versus your well-crafted Risograph-printed chapbook for example.”

While Galloway has written this history of the zine, he has also included extensive quotes from around fifty other zine creators who expand the history with all the various personal motivations behind the various concepts and designs.

The book is packed with information along with dozens of illustrations from the zines produced by authors / designers who are well-known such as Chris Knox and David Tulloch to lesser known, but prolific names like Sarah Laing and Indira Neville.

Indira Neville, An Incompetent Girl

Along with being a history of the zine in New Zealand Galloway has provided a personal political and social history of New Zealand featuring significant events and individuals who have helped create change in New Zealand over the last forty years.

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The surreal settings of Jeffrey Harris

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Jeffrey Harris, Diary of a Stranger

Jeffrey Harris

Suite Gallery

April 28 – May 30

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Jeffrey Harris creates surreal environments and portraits where Christian iconography and the mundane create richly textured imagery. Scenes which may derive from personal experience become images of universal importance reflecting on sexuality, personal and spiritual relationships.

In his latest exhibition of new paintings at Suite Gallery Harris draws on a range of sources including artists of the Trecento such as Giotto and Colin McCahon. His cartoon-like approach to his subjects and the Christian imagery create a unique view of the social, psychological, and spiritual dilemmas of society.

His use of Christian symbolism, is similar to the way McCahon had approached religion and its iconography, imagining the life of Christ in a contemporary world, in a contemporary setting.

Jeffrey Harris, Hovering Angel over Stony Bay

This mix of landscape, symbolism and religious iconography is seen at its most obvious in “Hovering Angel over Stony Bay” ($75,000) where the angel represents spiritual presence, protection, and the intersection of heaven and earth. There is also a swimming pool / cattle water trough referencing Christs baptism, the baptismal font and the water of life.

A crucifixion scene set in the centre of the painting appears to be located at a precise position, indicated by a precise line bisecting the image.

Jeffrey Harris, Journeys 1975 – 2026

The four vignettes in his “Journeys 1975 – 2026” ($95,000) owe much to surrealist artists such as de Chirico and Magritte. Each of the images composed of simple figures and objects which have populated much of the artist’s work. The elongated nude figures which allude the nude figure if Christ can probably also be read as a disenchanted, disillusioned Harris while many of the other figures – men with hats can be seen as bureaucrats or individual searching for the truth.

In these views of Harris’s world we are confronted figures who look back at us, questioning and querying. The objects in these paintings are at once recognisable and mysterious. The cloud in one can be linked to the early Christian mystical book “The Cloud of Unknowing” with its obscure attempts to the link the attaining of spiritual through mediation on the world rather than through enquiry.

In other works there are also strange symbols or sections of the Cross floating the air as well as a lone figure exhorting a group of people. These figures often found in his work confront the viewer but offer no lesson or reaction.

Throughout his works he depicts small objects, some instantly recognisable, other slightly obscure. They are like those images found in Renaissance painting, ordinary objects which have been chosen to convey the sitter’s wealth, status, piety, or intellect, functioning as a symbolic language rather than mere decoration. These symbols – an airplane, a book, various birds, black cats, a hot air balloon and a human head with horns give the paintings a sense of density and depth as well as the enigmatic.

The plane could be a reference to a series of McCahon works “Jet over Muriwai” which are a clever image connecting Māori and Christian / European notions of afterlife and isolation while the images of birds convey the idea of a free spirit as well as highlighting the balance between nature and divine narratives.

Jeffrey Harris, Crucifixion and Landscape

With “Crucifixion and Landscape” ($70,000) the artist places the event in an undefined location, although the hills could refer to the Southern Alps. The work like many artists of the last 100 years tries to place the Christian narrative in contemporary settings with the Christ figure symbolising the suffering and pain of individuals in contemporary society. In using Christian imagery Harris creates ambivalent narratives. While the Bible stories are about God/Christ, Harris uses them as symbols of human suffering, addressing issues of personal spirituality and angst.

Jeffrey Harris, Wedding 1975 – 2026

With “Wedding 1975 – 2026” ($70,000) the artist has depicted a wedding party, but as with all his “secular” images there is a tension and unease with the wedding group most of whom are looking to the right beyond the picture frame. Knowing Harris’s liking of religion subjects this could well be a depiction of the wedding at Cana, and the group are watching Christ performing his miracle of turning water into wine.

With these painting the artist endeavours to create narratives combining biblical tales, recreated myths, dream sequences and psychological insights.

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Reviews, News and Commentary

Helen Clark in Six Outfits : The politician her career and her clothes

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Image Andi Crown

Helen Clark in Six Outfits

By Fiona Samuel

ATC

Until April 26

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Helen Clark in Six Outfits uses the notion of tracking Helen Clark’s career through reference to the clothing she wore at various stages of her life. It is a concept which even the stage version of Clark rejects going on a rant about how she has always been judged by appearance – her hair, her teeth, her voice and her marriage. All those notions which are rarely used to demean male parliamentarians.

The play traces the life of Helen Clark from school kid through to the present as she climbs both the academic and the parliamentary ladders to her unsuccessful bid at becoming the Secretary General of the UN.

Along the way we/she remember the fluctuating fortunes of National and Labour governments as well as encountering the major political figures of the time – Phil Goff, Jim Anderton, David Lange, Jonathan Hunt, Jenny Shipley, Judith Tizard and even Winston Peters -is he still alive.

We also hear the voice of Brian Edwards who acts as a voice-over Narrator and was one of her early media advisors / image consultants. We also get to encounter her more recent media consultant, Maggie Eyre.

Studded though her career we get the major achievements of her and her governments – paid parental leave, free early childcare, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.  legalized prostitution and civil unions for same-sex couples. 

Loooming over the stage is a clever set designed by Dan Williams which features a mountain-side which Clark ascends from time to time. It acts a a metaphor for her ascent to power as well as her physical/ mental / political struggles to reach the summit of her career.

As the older Clark Jennifer Te Atamira Ward-Lealand gives an impressive account of the politician, at time managing to capture the sound and intonation of her voice as well as her stare. Lauren Gibson as the younger Clark while not quite getting the voice manges to give an astute sense of the earlier Clark with her aspirations and self belief.

Ward Lealand also does a reasonable job of some walk-on parts such as Clark’s father a farmer who was at the other end of the political spectrum but still supported his daughter.

While this play is about serous stuff of politics Fiona Samuel takes a comic approach to the material which had the audience appreciating the political and personal witticisms such as the reference to Clark’s early page boy haircut – her “Joan of Arc” look

The play concluded with Ward-Lealand delivering a Clark speech. I couldn’t remember it all, but it went somewhere along the lines of –

“Let me note now the great importance of empowering women, including through education, to be part of leadership at every level. Equality between women and men at decision-making tables ensures that the perspectives of both get full consideration. As women, we are fully justified in asserting that there should be no decisions made about us without us.

When women are at those decision-making tables, they have the power to change priorities to what matters for the health and well-being of families and communities.

Empowered women become the architects of better health and well-being, making informed decisions for themselves and their communities.”

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Reviews, News and Commentary

Shane Foley, Time and Tide: Looking at Auckland’s past

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Shane Foley Campbells Point at Judges Bay

Shane Foley, Time and Tide

Artis Gallery

Until March 30

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Shane Foley’s “Tide and Tide” exhibition is based of archival images of Auckland‘s waterfront from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. They are of images of foreshores, beaches and building, most of the which have disappeared,

Several of the works make reference to Auckland’s history so “Campbells Point at Judges Bay” ($7500) includes `Kilbryd’, the large Italianate home of Sir John Logan Campbell. In this painting the artist has shaped much of the view making the foreshore beach a series of flat planes while the cliffs below the house have been sculpted with gentle curves of lawn.

Shane Foley Heaphy’s View, St Georges Bay, early 1860’s

In her “Heaphy’s View, St Georges Bay, early 1860’s” she has carefully constructed two houses in the foreground while two background houses owe much to Braque’s “Houses at L’estaque”.

Shane Foley Settlement, St Georges Bay 1867

With “Settlement, St Georges Bay 1867” ($3800) the houses seem like surreal addition, the boxlike shapes placed in the carefully formed landscape consisting of folded landforms, where the fence lines are made from abstract curves.

With “Trees at Shelly Beach, Pt Erin 1914” ($1900) she has depicted one of the now forgotten buildings which could be found on Auckland’s waterfront. This was the salt water, tidal baths at Pt Erin which were demolished for the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Other buildings from the period include “West End Rowing Club at St Mary’s Bay 1914” ($4800) and ‘The Jetty, St Mary’s Bay. 1950’s’ ($4800) where the eerie white buildings stand out from the background.

There is a slight tension in viewing these works, as the past and present merge and the abstraction the artist uses distances our view, giving them a dream-like aspect.