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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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Picasso: Designed by Paul Smith

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Picasso: Designed by Paul Smith

Curated by Joanne Snrech. Virginie Perdrisot-Cassan and François Dareau (Musée National Picasso–Paris) and Sophie Matthiesson (Auckland Art Gallery)

Auckland Art Gallery

10 Oct 2026 – 1 Feb 2027

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

With the new “Picasso: Designed by Paul Smith” exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery we actually get two shows – a survey of Picasso’s works spanning seventy years as well as an introduction to Paul Smith’s approach to design and his own take on the work of Picasso.

We encounter the crossover between the two artists in the first room of the show where Picasso’s “Head of a Bull” confronts Paul Smith’s sixteen deconstructed bulls head made of handlebars and bicycle seats. Whether this is an homage or just a witty response will colour your appreciation of Smith’s design interventions throughout the show.

His painted walls and others contrived aspects of the show have divided opinions similar to the divided response to the Tate’s “Theatre Picasso” exhibition which has just ended in London. Staged by the contemporary artist Wu Tsang and curator Enrique Fuenteblanca, they transformed the exhibition space into a theatre for displaying over 45 works by Picasso.

But as one commentator in the Arts Dispatch said of the show, “Still, this is Picasso and the works remain impressive, standing on their own merit without the failed framing”. It’s a comment which applies to Paul Smith’s design as well. The works do not really need someone else’s interpretation, in fact, the additions of Paul Smith can often detract from Picassos intent.

This is the first solo exhibition of Picasso’s work in New Zealand in more than 30 years with over 80 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and ceramics from the Musée national Picasso–Paris.

Sir Paul’s designs for the gallery spaces take inspiration from the colours, shapes, patterns and textures of Picasso’s artwork. His designs transform the gallery spaces, creating environments which add or detract from the viewers experience.

Pablo Picasso, Bust of a woman or sailor (study for “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”) Musée national Picasso-Paris

There are many of the spaces where we get a sense of the artist developing his art such as in the Pink Ladies section where “Buste de femme ou de marin” can be seen as a study for” Les Demoiselles d’Avignion” where he has broken down the face into shapes, so the nose, eyes, cheeks and background become geometric splinters.

Then in The Cubist Laboratory room there are several examples of how he and Georges Braque created Cubist abstraction and collage.

There is Picasso’s “Le Sacre-Couer,” the Paris church he lived near to. This is an early example of analytical cubism, where Picasso used sharp geometric shapes, fractured planes, and broken semi-circles to deconstruct the three-dimensional landscape of the hill and church into a flat, abstract composition.

Georges Braque, La Tasse Auckland Art Gallery, Julien and Rosie Robertson Collection

Then there is the more interesting Georges Braque “La Tasse” where the artist has deconstructed a simple cup into a web of intersecting vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines. Rather than rendering a realistic object, the artwork focuses heavily on spatial relationships, shifting perspectives, and the compression of light and shadow.

This work comes from the gallery’s own collection having been gifted by Julien and Rosie Robertson and bought by the Robertsons in 2006 for $2,872,000 USD.  This work and two Picasso’s from the collection are the most impressive works in the exhibition and are fine examples of the artist’s use of colour and makes a real impact.

Many of the works reflect Picasso’s biographical approach to his art. As he says ‘I paint the way some people write an autobiography. The paintings, finished or not, are the pages from my diary.’ So, sometimes these diary entries are fulsome while at other times they are like brief notes.

In the Bullfighting Room there are several images of the horse and in “Bullfighting: The Death of the Bullfighter” we see the image of the distressed horse, a subject he had previously used and which would be a major element in his Guernica of 1937.

Pablo Picasso, Bullfighting: Death of the Toreador Musée national Picasso-Paris (Paris, France)

In the “Stripes” Room we encounter several of his portraits where the backgrounds are of stripes. The motif may have derived from the Breton striped shirt which was the standard navy and white stripes, of the French Navy uniform. It was adopted by Picasso while living in the South of France. The striped background in several of his paintings used both as a wallpaper and as a motif which connects many of his works.

Pablo Picasso Le Déjeuner Sur L’herbe après Manet, Musée national Picasso-Paris

One of the most impressive rooms is one devoted to his interpretations of “Le Déjeuner Sur L’herbe” by Manet. Picasso had long shown a great interest in the theme of the nude, and “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe” relates in part to the theme of the artist and his model which figures often in his work.

In adapting” Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” to his own purposes, Picasso was playing with the history of art, with Manet’s legacy and that of the Italian Renaissance with the images of the Renaissance artists Marcantonio Raimondi and Raphael whose work had inspired the Manet work.

Picasso likes the image which fitted in with his many depictions of the artist and his nude model. He produced close to 150 paintings and numerous other works featuring the artist and his model. With many of these works Picasso cast himself as a passionate, flawed creator or beast observing or interacting with female figures.

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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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Peter Boggs: Transfigured Realities

John Daly-Peoples

Peter Boggs, The Fountain

Peter Boggs

Peter Boggs who was born in New Zealand is one of the leading contemporary painters in Australia, with a career spanning over 50 years and 70 solo exhibitions. He trained at the Elam School of Fine Arts where one of his tutors was Colin McCahon. He taught at Mt Albert Grammar and had several exhibitions in New Zealand before moving to Australia.

 He has been an award-winning painter and is at home painting the mysteries of Italian Renaissance Gardens – most notably the Boboli Gardens in Florence, as well exploring the secret and forgotten aspects of the rural and urban landscapes. After coming across a strange empty room in a building in Italy in 2013, interiors began to dominate his interest – continuing to the present. Dreamscapes of remembered interior settings often only briefly seen and experienced, have become transfigured and re- imagined enigmatic spaces of stillness and silence

His paintings have been referred to as quiet works with a restrained magic and are subtle and dreamlike evoking deep moods, sensations, and atmospheres without relying on explicit storytelling or literal narratives. Rather than demand attention like some expressionist art, his pieces are described as quiet and seductive, drawing the viewer into a personal, deeply felt experience.

The spaces he paints seem entirely real yet slightly out of reach, forcing the viewer to engage intuitively rather than just visually. It is this bitter-sweet quality, where the known and that which is slightly eerie and edgy meet, that characterises many of Boggs’s paintings. Boggs can be an exquisite literal draughts man who can capture precise likenesses and surface textures, yet in his paintings he creates ‘memoryscapes’. All of the locations that he has painted he has visited, frequently on numerous occasions, and he knows them well, yet he recreates them from memory and reimagined.

Peter Boggs Shadowed Walkway

In the Boboli Gardens views and the alleys and streetscapes of Venice there is a quiet reverence for the painters Walter Sickert and John Singer Sargent. Paintings, including Shadowed walkway (Venice), is an examples of his strangely transfigured spaces, rich in their spiritual associations. All of his scenes are depopulated, rather than deserted. It is as if the human presence has been removed, perhaps only temporarily, although signs of habitation are omnipresent. It seems that at any moment, someone will appear from around the corner or walk down the alleyway, but for the moment all is still, tranquil and caught within a dream-like reality. The light is filtered, subdued and the tonal harmonies are beautifully balanced.

In a review of his interior paintings the reviewer Sasha Grishin wrote, “Many of his paintings deal with gardens, deserted landscapes and cityscapes and earlier were preoccupied with still life compositions. He had already been hinting at facades of buildings and looking into windows and open doorways. In this new body of work the focus is entirely on interiors of usually unspecified structures. They seem European, quite grand, possibly museums, but seen from odd angles with open curtains, windows and doorways exposing glimpses of the outside world.

Peter Boggs Reflections in an empty room

In his paintings nothing much happens, there is no dramatic narrative for us to engage with, but everything is charged with an inner tension where the anticipation is immense. There is so much that can happen, but nothing actually does. The viewer is provided with privileged access to these scenes, but there are relatively few clues provided as to what we are actually witnessing. We are invited to contemplate a passage of sunlight in the hallway, a painting hanging on the wall as a silent witness, a glimpse of a street through an open doorway or the play of shadows on the floor.

Boggs exploits two very deliberate artistic strategies in his work. The first is the use of a very subdued tonal palette, there are no screaming bright colours or sudden contrasts. The second is the total depopulation of the settings and the general sparseness. There is no movement and although there are signs of human habitation, there is no one present at the moment, and we are invited into the spaces in the manner of voyeurs. When there is no human presence, we tend to populate the space within our imagination, we invent narratives.”

Peter Boggs, Evening shadows,
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The Art of Terry Stringer

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Art of Terry Stringer

Edited by Linda Tyler

Massey University Press

RRP $90.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Terry Stringer has been a leading New Zealand sculptor and a key figure in the history of art in New Zealand. Working predominately in bronze, the majority of Stringer’s sculptures depict figures and still-life subjects. Many of his works reveal his interest in classical sculpture, Renaissance art, cubism and architecture along with mythology and literature.

It is these wide range of influences which are explored in a new book “The Art of Terry Stringer” which examines his life and work.

Along with a substantial introductory biographical essay by Linda Tyler, the book features essays by Peter Simpson, Mark Hutchins-Pond, Mark Stocker, Andrew Douglas and Robin Woodward, each focusing on different aspects of Stringer’s body of work. It is handsomely illustrated with photos of Stringer in his studio by Jane Ussher, and of the artist’s work by art photographer Haru Sameshima.

Terry Stringer. Arts Laureate Award, 2000. Bronze, 19.5cm. Haru Sameshima

It is a book that reveals the inspirations, the thinking, the processes, and the way he perceives his art within various environments ant the writers, photographers and designers have crafted a book which seems to have all the characteristics of the artist’s approach to creation.

Some of his major works can be seen at public sites throughout Aotearoa/New Zealand. These include The Risen Christ in Christchurch’s Cathedral Square (now in storage), Mountain Fountain, in the forecourt of Auckland’s Cathedral of the Holy Trinity and The World Grasped in Newmarket.

Terry Stringer. Being in Time 2021 AP. Courtesy of Milford Galleries. Photo Glenn Frei: Being in Time, 2021. Bronze, 220cm. Courtesy Milford Galleries, Dunedin and Queenstown, photograph by Glenn Frei

Stringer says of his approach to sculpture making, “For me, it has been a lifetime of pursuing one idea. I have to say that I am making the same sculpture over and over, and that it changes just a little each time, each piece of it being a new puzzle to solve. In the making of a work two contradictory ideas are clashed together — perhaps one subject transforms into another as the work is turned, or it might be that a figure that has been distorted for formal reasons needs to be brought to life.”

With many of the artists’ works he provides the viewer with multiple viewpoints, as Peter Simpson notes in his essay “The Intercut Image”. One of these sculptures “Gather ye Rosebuds” takes its title from the Robert Herrick poem and the work’s multiple images reference images from the poem – a young girls face, a blooming rose and a reaching hand.

The intercut images are not just a way of rewarding the viewer with changing perspectives we also see the artist exploring the nature of three-dimensional art.

Terry Stringer. Temple of Flora, 2004. Bronze, 254cm. Gil Hanly

The book has over one hundreds photographs by Jane Ussher and Haru Sameshima which feature many of the artists’ works as well as his studio and residences. The images of his studio are particularly revealing, Ussher has captured the artist at work in his current cavernous studio in Couldry St in Mt Eden as well as at the foundry where his works are made.

Zealandia, Mahurangi, by JASMAX Architects, 1998–2000. Simon Devitt

The photographs provide a visual record of the artist which sees the artist in the various stages of producing his work, revealing the almost magical steps in the creation of the artworks.

There is also a photographic essay on the evolution of a sculpture he was making of the painter Jacqueline Fahey. From initial sketches of the artist through the various stages of making the original clay figure, going to the foundry and the finishing processes.

He says of the process ‘Bronze sculpture-making has many stages. This sequence of images showing the evolution of a head of the painter Jacqueline Fahey starts with a drawing and then the clay work. From there it is plaster-moulded in my studio and wax is poured into it before it goes to the foundry. There it is prepared, re-moulded and baked out to create a ceramic shell for the bronze to be poured into. In this manufacturing process the artist starts the sequence and then decides the final presentation. Bronze-making is a story of life, death and rebirth over several episodes, until the work is finally realised.’

Of the photography by Jane Ussher several of which show Stringer in his studio he says “They have the atmosphere of old master paintings. And I had huge fun collaborating with Jane in staging still life groups that referenced various sources of inspiration.”

Terry Stringer Image Jane Ussher

Linda Tyler says of his work “His ideas for sculpture are typically quirky and engaging as well as beautifully executed, and while his works belong to different series, there are certain constants. For example, he communicates his sense of fun by encouraging viewers to move around each sculpture and make (sometimes startling) discoveries for themselves. I think that this derives from his love for Victorian ‘optical amusements’ such as folded pictures and puzzles where you see one image when you look in a certain direction, and something different when you look back the other way.”

Throughout his practice he has produced a number of figurative works which celebrate New Zealand artists with works depicting Charles Rose, Frank Sargeson, Frances Hodgkins, Kiri te Kanawa and Jacqueline Fahey.

Along with Tyler’s writings there are five essays by gallery directors, arts writers and university teachers – Andrew Douglas, Peter Simpson, Mark Stocker, Mark Hutchins-Pond and Robin Woodward. These writers investigate particular areas of nth artists work — his purpose-built residences / studios, the intercut images, the medals and maquettes and assemblages.

Stringer was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Scholarship four times – 1977, 1981, 1982 and 1986.  His contribution to New Zealand art was acknowledged in 2003, when he was the recipient of the country’s national honour, the ONZM (Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit).

Throughout his career Terry Stringer has exhibited extensively, with solo shows in Auckland, Sydney, Los Angeles and London. He is represented in major public collections, including the Auckland and Christchurch Art Galleries, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the Alexander Turnbull Library.  

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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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Cirque Alice full of elaborate acts and surprises

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Cirque Alice cast take their final bow

Cirque Alice

Civic Theatre, Auckland

August 28 – September 6

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

 My invitation to Cirque Alice said that the dress code for the event was A Touch of Wonderland, a request which quite a few people had taken up with several sequined jackets and dresses seated close to me and some children wearing their Frozen dresses. The Civic Theatre was at its best as well, with the winking stars and the occasional comet streaking across the ceiling of the theatre.  The theatre itself was flossed up with spotlights and laser light sparkling across the stage and audience, creating the setting for an extravagant evening. Then we were reminded of where we are and who we were to meet when the White Queen commanded us to ensure there was no flash photography or it would be “off with your head”.

Cirque du Soleil shows are always elaborate gymnastic displays, but they are always imbedded with a story or narrative which loosely holds all the characters and the events together.

The advertising for Cirque Alice said it was a reimagined Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll’s classic tale of characters and adventures but like a lot of Cirque show after establishing the reason for being there the evening takes on a rather casual approach to the narrative. The characters are all immediately recognisable – Alice, White Rabbit and Mad Hatter but their adventures and exploits take you to another realm.

The show featured a lineup of some of the greatest circus and magic performers on earth – from America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League, and Cirque du Soleil the cast members were among the very best acrobatic, music and dance talent in the world.

The various acts were set to an enthralling soundtrack of newly arranged contemporary takes on some of the world’s favourite classical hits – Lakme, Swan Lake and Flight of the Bumble Bee while the costumes designed by Angele Aaron were stunning.

The March Hare and Alice

Alice (Layla Schillert) is on stage a lot of the time and with her brilliant soprano voice she wowed the audiencia with some captivating singing. There are even has a few sequences which have been taken for the book. So that when she drinks from an unlabelled bottle, she ends up fifteen metres above the stage with a vast train of a dress.

But it is the Mad Hatter (Darren “Dizzy” Partridge) who is the stand-out performer and one of the few characters who speaks to the audience He is the part magician who gets audience members on the stage. We also get quite a lot of The White Rabbit (Raphael Papo) playing his violin.

The various acts are cleverly structured so that there are spectacular acts where the audience holds its collective breath for several minutes along with acts which are just amazing for the dexterity of the performers as they create small, intimate, poetic moments.

The Caterpillar

One of these poetic more acts was The Caterpillar (Munkhjin Tuvd, Bayarmaa Ganbat, Shinechimeg Otgonbayar and Dolgorsuren Ganbold) where the four performers balance and intertwine with each other bodies creating extraordinary patterns and rhythms.

Then there were acts where you can’t really believe what someone is attempting. There have been many cabaret acts where performers balance a short platform on a ball, managing to keep their balance, but when The Dormouse (Daniel Onofre) starts to pile six tubes on top of each other your heart is in your mouth and then while he is wobbling on this pile of tubes, he introduced a couple of hula hoops which he threaded through his legs and body – ridiculously complicated.

The White King and White Queen (Mathieu and Myriam Lessard) wearing roller skates performed a duo, spinning around on top of a small circular stage and it looked a bit inelegant. Roller skating is pretty difficult at the best of times but the balancing and twirling that they engaged in started to seem impossible. Then when they began spinning with the King supporting the Queen with only a strip held between their two mouths the act became unbelievable and dangerous.

There were a couple of acts where the performers strength and skill was obvious. The Knights (Fadhili Rashidi and Ibrahim Mwaimise) walk around, climb steps and ladders all the time balancing each other on their heads. They did it all with such grace and ease that it makes you think it must be easy, until one of them nearly trips and you realise it’s not that easy.

A Cirque du Soleil show is always more than just entertainment. You get to see people whose skills are exceptional and whose acts are refined to the point that they transcend regular circus and acrobatic performances such as we regularly see the at the Auckland Festival. This is what years of practice, concentration and commitment can achieve.

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South Island Māori Rock Art

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

South Island Māori Rock Art: European interest from the 19th century to the present

Philippa F Graham

Canterbury Museum

RRP $89.99

Publication Date. September 1

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Rock drawings are one of the oldest forms of art with numerous examples throughout the world. There are also many examples in both the North Island and South Island which have been well documented.

A new publication, South Island Māori Rock Art by Philippa Graham looks at the rock art from some of the South Island sites with numerous maps and photographs and graphic depictions of the artworks which were generally painted onto limestone.

The pale, fine textured limestone provided an ideal surface to draw on with artists using the closest material to hand. The black colour was usually charcoal (burnt stick from fires) while the red colour would have been made from Kokowai (red oxide of iron) mixed with bird or fish oil.  Where there is no limestone, the drawings would have been incised on the smooth surface of grey-wacke rock.

J L Elmore Drawings at Albury Park (Tengawai Gorge)

That the drawings were made with fugitive materials on perishable surfaces it is a wonder that they have lasted so long, exposed to all types of weather. 

The South Island Māori rock drawings, dating back to early Māori occupation, were initially seen as scientific curiosities by many early European explorers and later, museum curators, including Julius von Haast, Alexander Hamilton, Robert
Speight, and H.D. Skinner.

Early on there was the debate in European circles about the artistic merits of the rock drawings, and their value to both local and international collectors. Experts such as Dr. J.L. Elmore a visiting American anthropologist and antiquarian collector documented, controversially damaged and removed portions of Māori rock art from sites in the South Island around 1916 encouraged by a few museum curators.

The scale of the paintings was minimal at some sites while at others they are quite extensive. The ornithologist and botanist W R B Oliver noted that at Weka Pass a portion of the paintings were 66 feet (20m) long with about 80 figures between two and three feet in height.

In the mid twentieth century, the different approaches to the works can be seen in the contrasting attitudes of archaeologist Roger Duff and artist Theo Schoon. Duff was initially dismissive of the rock art seeing the works as “doodles”. Theo Schooh however saw the drawing as having greater aesthetic and spiritual significance.


The book is the culmination of many years of exploring and checking the sites by local farmer Philippa Graham, encouraged by landowners, field staff from the
Department of Lands and Survey and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.

There has been little written about the history of these rock art sites since Michael Trotter and Beverley McCulloch’s 1971 publication, Prehistoric Rock Art of New Zealand and now with South Island Māori Rock Art, Graham calls on her in-depth research at all of the major New Zealand institutions, in addition to the Thomas Burke Museum, Seattle. She has uncovered fresh material about the sites, the landowners, the governments of the times, archaeologists’ contributions, museums’ involvement, library records and attitudes towards local Māori in early days.

European Sailing Ship, Takiroa Shelter, North Otago

The nameless artists who first daubed charcoal and red ochre on these walls depicted subjects which were generally close to home. The images range from abstract forms, to bird, animal life and people. The presence of bones from moa and the extinct quail suggest that the people who made these images started early in terms of human habitation in the area. There may have been a long break in continuity, as there are also depictions of European sailing ships and animals suggesting that the practice may have been revived in the late eighteenth or early ninetieth century.

The book details the efforts to preserve and record the drawings at various sites. Among these efforts were the overpainting of works at Weka Pass by the and Thomas Herberley and the more recent drawings by Theo Schoon and Tony Fomision.

The book has more than 350 illustrations and maps, an index and a Māori glossary, as well as a chapter focusing on New Zealand artists who have been inspired by the rock drawings. In producing these images, the artists have often produced more refined images and in the case of the New Zealand postage stamps have brought these images to the wider public.

Matariki Stamps 2012 Designer Dane Burke & advisor Brian Allingham and Nga Tahu Māori Rock Art Trust

The artists who have used the imagery include James Turkington, Cliff Whiting, Selwyn Muru, John Bevan Ford, Tony Fomison, Rua Pick, Theo Schoon, Denis Knight Turner and Gordon Walters.

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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.”