Tag: painting

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

New Zealand Photography Collected 

175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa

Te Papa Press

Written by Athol McCredie

RRP  $90.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

New Zealand Photography Collected illuminates New Zealand’s photographic history, from the earliest nineteenth-century portraits of Māori and local ‘scenic views’ to the latest contemporary art photography. The previous edition of the book published in 2015 went into two editions and this expanded version featuring 400 images from Te Papa’s collection of 400,000 works.

From the iconic to the previously unpublished, the selection includes outstanding photographs by the Burton Brothers, Leslie Adkin, Spencer Digby, John Pascoe, Brian Brake, Frank Hofmann, Ans Westra, Eric Lee-Johnson, Marti Friedlander, Laurence Aberhart, Ann Shelton, Glenn Jowitt, Anne Noble, Yvonne Todd – and many more.

The book not only provides a wide selection of images, it also introduces the reader to the photographic artists who have used photography to explore our history and environment. The photographs of the nineteenth century makes us realise that these images are often our only reference point for how the country, its people and events looked in the past.

Author and curator Athol McCredie provides a wide-ranging selection of images across portraiture, landscape, science, documentary photography and art with informative notes.

Together these photographs tell stories about life in this country from almost the earliest days of European colonisation and about how the practice of photography has evolved here, reflecting the dynamic and increasingly diverse nature of the collection, allowing for previously unseen treasures, and enabling familiar works to be recontextualised with fresh insights.

In making the selection, McCredie, says “I looked for photographs that were evocative, resonant, ambiguous, entertaining, and most especially, that might say something about the nature of photography itself.”

Whie no collection of photographs can be comprehensive the book offers many threads which weave together a sense of the nation’s history and culture. It is more than a history of photography tracing out our responses to the landscape, the built environment, events and people.

Through the book we see the taming and changing of the landscape, the changing domestic and commercial architecture, the way we dress and there are images of the  citizens we valued for their contribution to our civic and cultural life.

There are portraits of Māori such as Tomika Te Mutu, as well as other history makers such as Peter Fraser, Ed Hillary and Mike Moore along with artists such as Kiri Te Kanawa, Tony Fomison and Yuki Kihara.

We also can see the way in which the photograph has changed from the need to simply record the landscape and people through to experimentation as well as viewing photography as a means of social and political change.

While there no comparative before and after images the book does have images of the changing face of the land as well as images of the major cities and the built environment from the nineteenth century and the twentieth which show the development of the urban areas. We are also able to see the changing nature of clothes, particularly those worn by females.

The inclusion of Frank Hofmann, one of the major modernist photographers is an example of the multi-talented artist who worked across the media providing many of the important modernist photographs as well as portraits. A photograph of the Christopher Bede Studio, which he founded also shows his ability to work across the commercial as well as experimental genres.

There are number of images of individual  Māori and Māori  society which changes over the  course of time from initially being of an ethnographic nature  with images by John Nicol Crombuie and Alfred Burton through to seeing Māori as an integral part of society with photos by Ans Westra as well as seeing the inclusion of Māori photographers such as Tia Ranginui and Fiona Pardinton.

There are several small suites of work such as Eric Lee-Johnson images of Opo taken at Opononi in 1956, Gordon Burt’s commercial works mainly of automobiles and the Burton Brothers for their extensive images of the country.

Then there are individual images such as Frede Brockett’s dramatic image of the wreck of La Bella, Theo Schoon’s Geothermal studies or Eric Lee Johnson’s image of a bike wheel and shadow which predate similar work by Bill Culbert who, surprisingly, has no images in the book.

The landscape work in the book range from the nineteenth century images of the Burton Brothers through the NZ Tourism images, the myth-like work “Peter Pan on Mt Eden” by J. W. Chapman-Taylor through to the revisionist work of Mark Adams.

While there are not a lot of photographs of dramatic historical events like Les Wallace’s “Napier after the earthquake” there are a few, like Paul Simei Barton’s images of the demonstrations about the Springbok 1982 tour as well as the Covid 19 demonstration in Wellington by Adrian Lambert.

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Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Dick Frizzell

The Weight of the World

Gow Langsford, Onehunga

Until October 25

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Dick Frizzell’s latest show  “Weight of the World,”  at Gow Langsford could well be a reference to Ringo Starr’s 1998 comeback single of the same name which uses the phrase to describe the struggle of letting go of the past and embracing the future. 

The exhibition is ambivalent in terms of the artist’s own life and work, linking the past with his history of breaking new ground. At times his work has seemed to be conservative, borrowing art of the past and outdated advertising images. But this reworking or appropriating images of the past can also be a way of charting new directions for his art.

The exhibition also alludes to his recently published autobiography “Hastings” with its references to growing up in small town New Zealand and the rural landscapes of Central North Island in which the young Frizzell’s encounters with the world of Hastings provide an almost heroic account of his life.

As the artist says “My landscapes occupy a special place in my affections because they define, more than any other of my endeavours, the most solid manifestation of my philosophy. Both the subjects and their manner of representation are chosen to emphasise my eternally optimistic faith in the physical universe that I believe we are ultimately destined to define. I hope… through my piles of hills, stumps, trees and land… to literally convey ‘the gravity of the situation’.”

While his paintings can be seen as simple descriptive works there is a complexity to their construction as well as their context and history. creating dense works about observation, contemplation and significance.

Several of the landscape images from the exhibition could have been illustrations to his autobiography such as “Dirt Road” ($27,500) and “Backtrack” ($45,000), images that are quintessential New Zealand scenes which link past and present with images which are both descriptive and metaphoric.

There is one work with the same title of the exhibition, “The Weight of the World” ($163,000). It depicts a large tree stump, a reference both to his own tree stump works of the 1980’s as well as those by artists such as Mervyn Taylor and Eric Lee-Johnson. These dead trees were both a symbol of modernism and change as well as an emblematic of the past and loss of identity. 

Much of the artist’s work is imbued with this sense of nostalgia and Frizzell has regularly depicted aspects of New Zealand – a series of local businesses, the huts at Scott base and the controversial series of hei tiki works which all helped define the nature of New Zealand culture.

There are a few signs of habitation or figures in his works mainly small insignificant buildings, “Whitebaiter’s Huts” ($27,500) and “Leaning Toilet” ($27,500) but there is also a painting of a Ratana Chapel “The Beginning and the End”  $27,500) displaying the words  ārepa (alpha) ōmeka (omega), and the large panoramic  “Autumn Morning Alexandra” $185,000).

The only paintings of a settlement in the exhibition are “Autumn Morning Alexandra, 2023 “($185,000) and “Alexandra Morning 2019” ($65,000) where the emphasis is on the natural aspects of the view, the distant hills, the colours of the sky and Autumn leaves as well as the surrounding vegetation. The largest work in the exhibition is “Milling Whakaangiangi” ($225,000), a celebration and recognition of the ever-changing face of the land.

As well as taking inspiration from the New Zealand artists of the early twentieth century there are acknowledgment of other artists – such as his Monet-like “Winter, Earnscleugh Road” ($55,000) and a nod to Winslow Homer’s lighthouse with his “Castlepoint”.

As with much of the artist’s work there is a wry humour in many of the paintings both in terms of the subject and the titles. A small painting of a pie is titled  27/3/2025” where English and mathematics merge, similar to his Greek / English word play in “The Beginning and the End”.

The exhibition reveals an artist addressing conflicted personal and national histories around land, seeing the land as both a record of our history and a metaphor for our changing identity, seeing the future looming out of the past.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Aroha Gossage

Into The Light

Artis Gallery

August 12 – 24

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The paintings in Aroha Gossage’s new exhibition “Into the Light” are grounded in her connection to the whenua of Pakiri, north of Auckland where she lives.

They continue Gossage’s exploration of land, light, and ancestry, the paintings serving as links between observation of her environment and reflections on her connections to the land  and to her ancestors.

Several of the works are titled after their subject matter, simple renderings of native trees –  Nikau, Macrocarpa and Manuka. These works follow in the tradition of botanical artists such as Sir Joseph Banks who identified Manuka in 1769 during his time with Captain Cook on his first voyage aboard the Endeavour and many artists have depicted trees and their flowers since then notably Emily Cumming Harris and Shane Cotton.

Gossage’s “Manuka” ($2700) is painted in golden tones giving it an enigmatic quality where earth and foliage are connected, creating an image which transcends the physical. ”Manuka” is part of group of four small works which have distinctive colouring, due to the earth pigments the artist has collected from sites around her local environment.

While most of her works are of botanical subjects there are a few which include figures, or at least the spirits or manifestations of figures. Rather than earthly figures they suggest ancestral presence. As the title of the show suggest these figures are journeying towards the light of a new place or a new understanding.

In the  large ”Anahera” ($9800) a caped / shrouded figure inhabits an abstract environment with traces of foligare snaking through the work. There is a sense of another world in which ancestors dwell, the paintings connecting the physicality of this world with the spirituality of the other-world .

This can also be seen in “Light” ($2700) with one indistinct form and “Tupuna” ($9800) with several shapes inhabiting a forest of trees. With the works that include figures it is noticeable that while the trees are painted with  distinctive realism the figures are indistinct and ethereal.

Some of her works such as “Witi” ($4750) have a quiet drama to them like Rita Angus’ “Tree”. ”Witi” is also impressive because of its deep red earth pigment which seems to it refer to bush fires, destruction and renewal.

Works such as “Hine” ($2700)  and “Macrocarpa” with their dark tones seem to be ghost-like images of the trees rather than mere depictions, as though  inhabiting another dimension.

The suggestion of another world is created in many of these painting by veils of overlapping colour where the air around the foliage and figures in infused with earthy tones.

There are a  couple of works which are pure landscape “Pakiri Dunes” ($9800) and “Kaitaki” ($9800).These do not have the same density or richness as the others works being descriptive with fewer  allusions to another dimension.