this was on my mind (i won't say heavily, cause tbh i was on holiday in Rarotonga - my future home) during my time away, thinking about the (little) art i have engaged with in my time. there has only really been one artist that has completely captured my absolute full attention, it was kind of like a slap to the face. throwbacks to the beginning of this lil fine arts adventure lol
It was 2014 i was a first year massey design student enrolled in a bachelor of fashion and business. I wasn't enjoying my studio papers, hardly attended classes, called by lecturers to check if i was alg, hated using the overlocker and fully despised having to iron all 30247 of my "sample stitches". but i thought i was gonna be a fashion designer cause thats what the other 3 girls from home were doing so i thought thats just what i had to do. then the 1st half of semester two came round and i was in a textile studio - something i finally enjoyed, so i decided to change my major. at the same time i withdrew from my Apparel Construction elective and sought something better suited to my interests/patience. funnily enough after scrolling through multiple pages of options, i came to the only kaupapa maori paper offered on the wellington campus. i was despo, didnt know what i'd be in for, had a stereotypical ideal of what maori art was and immediately wrote off my own ability to succeed in this paper but i knew enduring koru drawings would be far more tolerable then Pattern or Apparel Construction. It was in the humble Toi Atea class led by Hemi McGregor's where i think i started realisng the full scope of what maori art can and does look like. it was one of the most "wow" but also "omfg you're an idiot" moment i've experienced in my life. omfg you're an idiot because the artists we were told to look and and the work we had been shown were some that i had grown up to know as uncles (interesting that it was predominantly male huh smh lol) i had spent too many evenings as a child with my dad at these (what i thought at the time) stupid places with weird chunks of wood half carved and concrete things and glass things spread across the gallery space full of old people eating stinky cheese and drinking not ribena. of course as i got older i began to understand why exhibitions were a thing and why my dads friends all had identical sheds full of shit that they proudly nested in. never once did i consider it maori art though. blissfully ignorant to my whole upbringing. wasn't until i was in an entirely different place with an entirely different landscape/population that i really opened my eyeballs.
I've gone off track big time with my whole speil but i think it helps for me anyways to have a lil context for my why. I decided to respond to "Black Painting",1968 by Ralph Hotere. A set of seven glass panels with the most immaculate paint job using the most deliciously rich black and an assortment of bright contrasting colours. my biggest inspiration and most favourite artist to have ever existed. his minimalist aesthetic literally tantalises my eyeball tastebuds if those even exist, and i thought i could get away with just saying that - and i did for a little while there. though just recently (yesterday) i met with Shannon and we discussed so many important things about a lot of stuff thats going on right now. we talked about my response and what i had reflected upon in Hotere's work. things i was thinking about were duality, repetition, balance, continuity etc which are all very well and good. Shannon asked me what it is that interests me in Hotere's work - to which i replied with all the qualities i had just listed and was met with a dismissive blank stare. I had to use my brain and unpack more on the work. that resulted in an unconscious but also maybe conscious observation and i guess a quality that i admire within his work and that was the way the work could present as being neutral. the ability to sit in both a western world as well as maori. this tension of being neither here nor there, kind of just in both but mostly in between. during this conversation i learn words with new meanings. understated and measured. things that i admire aesthetically about Hotere. I know the ideas and issues his work deals with are pretty much no way at all neutral which i thought (before this meeting with Shannon and the whole of 2018) was different to my own practice. i didnt think about how others would perceive the ideas that i am interested in and inform my work. i didnt ever think that my work deals with political issues or that i had opinions strong enough to be considered political - and i guess that had always concerned me. all my peers were so invested and informed by gender, identity, mental health and all these other things and here i was fucking around with some stars and a lunar calendar cause i was (and still am) fascinated with them. it makes me laugh every time i think about that. i dont know if i will ever take myself seriously or find a sophisticated way to introduce my work and it being about the stars and the moon lol.
sat there with Shannon unpacking and surfacing more about my work, we talk about things that i was unconsciously insecure/ashamed about and share similarities in our experiences. it was a nice exchange. it takes me a while to process topics and discussions so im not actually sure if it was an actual exchange because my responses were almost exclusively hums of agreement or "yeah" a rigorous and valuable conversation nonetheless, it really did make me wonder about my work. why am i attracted to this notion of being neutral? what is it about the duality of hotere's compositions and their ability to sit in both a pakeha and maori context? why do i want that? who is my art even for? why do i care about who its for?
i dunno. these are big questions, hard to digest right now but good to have. I'd been feeling so scattered and lost in this masters program. coming back from being away for 3weeks was rough. went through a whole rollercoaster of emotions. disagreements with dads about my choice of study, having thoughts and feelings of being incapable to pursue another expensive piece of paper and just having to deal with the question "so what can you do with a master of fine art?"
idk but i have a new more important task at hand. I need to make my studio look cool and comfy and worked in cause i need to meet Reuben Paterson and other cool people but more so Reuben so he can tell me about glitter stuff and also so we can scheme me a show at Bergman Gallery Rarotonga. or just any other way to go and spend some time in the cook islands. need to get plant and standing desk and cool couch. and maybe carpet
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