Part 1: Q+A Considerations
(Completed 12/03/22 - the post date says earlier as I have been editing the draft)
1.What do you do? What sort of things do you make? Or capture? Or select?
I make paintings and embroideries that speak to personally significant landscapes that are relevant to my own heritage. Gardens occur in my work as the main form of landscape that I paint, because my family has three generations of bromeliad growers who I wish to honour within this work. Artists (both hobbyist and professional) and craftsmen are also present in this lineage, whom I often reference by replication or intertwining of their work in my own by using their process, tools or at times manipulating the physical inherited object.
As a direct decedent of Moengaherehere who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi, I have whakapapa that speaks to a pre-colonial Aotearoa. I aim to bring this forward in my work by including references like Moengaherehere’s signature or important maunga, and fuse this with the colonial elements present within bromeliads and synthetic embroidery.
2. How do you make decisions during the process of your work? How and why do you select the materials, techniques and themes that you do?
At times I reference particular places my grandma has painted or gardens important to my heritage. This can include replicating archival photographs of gardens that existed before I was alive, or taking my own pictures of the many gardens that my mum and sister grow. Titling the artwork can hint to the viewer which of these techniques was used, or other indications of the era are made by incorporating the faded colour or torn edges of a vintage photograph into the artwork.
I may copy an image directly in a realistically rendered painting or embroidery. Other times I may choose certain cues from a photograph like colour, lightness/darkness, or composition to dictate the painting layout. When doing the latter, I aim to achieve a sense of depth by layering marks in contrasting thickness, flatness and size. Negative space features in my work to further create a sense of depth, which is why I often leave un-primed areas of canvas or linen. I hope that these works give a sense of space, and ultimately a sense of place if coupled by specific locational features like flora.
3. What are you valuing in the work?
Colour is of great importance in my work. It can be used to make references to a specific plant, garden, or gesture of another artist. Specific colour palettes can draw these references without direct replication, especially if some form of figuration is present in another piece in the installation. For example, I may do a study of a particular bromeliad plant which is then abstractly rendered in another painting in an identical colour palette.
Working with embroidery forces a different approach to colour mixing, because the thread comes in its finalised form. The layering of colours to achieve blending creates a nod to impressionism, with the separate threads sitting together in a way that lets the eyes do the mixing.
At times I reference specific paintings by 20th century female artists including my gran, Frances Hodgkins, Susan Te Kahurangi King or Marilynn Webb. Unlike Wayne White’s thrift painting inserts or the Chapman brothers ‘If Hitler was a Hippy’ series, I am not trying to rewrite or mock the referenced artist’s work even when I paint upon an original copy. Instead, I wish to allude to the context that each of these women worked in, whether it be relating to societal prejudice or connection to personal ancestry, and honour their work in the context that I am working in.
I value detail in my work, as a way to lean into the decorative nature of embroidery. Whilst some of my work appears gestural and abstract, I ensure to balance this with particular attention to details like stitching, delicate canvas preparation, and the hand-made appeal of a small-scale canvas. This is to ensure the work does not come across as a mockery of craft politics, but rather a celebration of new processes of utilising craft while honouring the women before me.
4. What are your sources or inspirations for images or forms used?
Growing up at a bromeliad nursery surrounded by thousands of plants has made gardens a natural source of inspiration. Bromeliad growing is a maternal legacy in my family, with my sister, my mum, and her mum all working in this business. I am interested in how this genetic attachment to bromeliads has shaped who I am as an artist today, in the same way that I am interested in the genetic connection to painters in my family.
Given that bromeliads originate in South America, the notion of bromeliad nurseries in Aotearoa creates a colonial context for the gardens that I am referencing in my artwork. There is also a fascinating culture around the growing of these plants, particularly in the Bromeliad society of New Zealand, which my mum was the president of for a number of years. There is a competitive and hobbyist nature to the industry that presents these plants as objects with varying value. I am interested in this side to the industry because it has elements of repetition/replication and selective breeding that can translate nicely into paint, with the plants sometimes appearing as ornaments or motifs. My sister even has a bromeliad named after her - Neoregelia Chlorosticta Sarmentosa (Lucy).
I also take inspiration from artists in my family. My grandma, Hazel Jack, was a painter. Piles of small artworks, sitting in her attic to never be exhibited, were passed on to me and I take great inspiration from these works as a way of resurrecting our lost connection. She passed away before I started painting, and I consider it a tragic broken timeline to have never connected with her through art. I also find these works interesting to bring into a contemporary context as they bare strong aesthetics of 70s hobbyist paintings, and histories of the women who did this kind of painting for leisure. I am interested in the hierarchies around this type of work, and how it can sit within the framework of my practice.
Ko Te Rarawa toku iwi. Kei te pīrangi au e whakapai oku akoranga o toku tūpuna wahine. (My iwi is Te Rarawa, I’m wanting to learn more about my Maori ancestors, specifically women.) I am a descendent of Moengaherehere, 47th signer of te tiriti o Waitangi and rangatira (chief) of Te Rarawa iwi. There are observations that while it was likely Moengaherehere himself who signed it, it could have been his daughter, toku tupuna wahine Arihia Moengaherehere (Archives New Zealand), because they were both important in Te Rarawa. As her descendent, I am interested in the lineage to such a significant document, particularly as it was the Maori translation that was signed. The signatures are not the written name, but the marks following. Many of these marks appear as crosses or a simple x, in some iwi it was signed with an important symbol. Moengaherehere’s mark has interesting form, clearly mimicking the neighboring x marks but bleeding into the parchment to create an abstract symbol. This also makes it particularly identifiable from the other marks. This shape occurs in my work as a reference to that part of my heritage, and cohabits interestingly with the colonial gardens and pakeha presence in my work.
Image from Archives New Zealand
Printmaker Marilynn Webb is also a descendent of Moengaherehere and his daughter Arihia. Marilynn was my Poppa’s cousin, who was close to her when younger and lost touch. He only realised her establishment in the art world when seeing her on the cover of the Otago Daily times when she passed, to which he emailed me. Although I never met her, I feel a personal loss at her passing. Much like my grandma, I wish to honour Marilynn’s work and create an artistic connection that we never got to have. I take inspiration from her contribution to landscape painting and Maori mahi toi, as well as her work as an arts educator because I am in the same profession in my role at Corbans Estate Arts Centre.
5. What are you trying to say in the work?
My work is autobiographical, and at times has personal overtones. These personal reflections carry with them a variety of histories, and despite them originating from the experiences of my own whanau they can speak to a broad political context. I ensure to select elements of my heritage that specifically have contributions, good or bad, to these contexts that I am researching.
Placing signifiers of my Maori whakapapa alongside the colonial elements of my heritage speaks to wider politics and issues within Maori land ownership, particularly in regards to The treaty of Waitangi vs Te tiriti o Waitangi.
Given the hobbyist nature of sewing and gardening, many people have experienced or been around these activities at some point in their lives. It can often have a warm association of a childhood glasshouse or nan knitting away on the sofa, which could potentially be coupled with a melancholic sadness of a time that has passed or person who is no longer here. My use of embroidery and the history that my treatment of the material carries with it, coupled with the different male-dominated history of painting, reflects on the relationship that these materials have in the art world in terms of hierarchy and value.
Functional or decorative objects, particularly when made by women, have had an up-down relationship with the art world over the years. The Arts and Crafts movement which began in Britain late 19th/early 20th century, shows us that whilst decoration is of great importance to society, craft as art is not taken as serious work. Leading architect of the time Owen Jones thought that decoration must be secondary to the thing decorated. Sparked by frustration at poor product design, he wrote a whole book on the matter titled ‘Supplementary Report on Design’ in 1852. In this book he states: ‘“Design’’ has reference to the construction of any work both for use and beauty, and therefore includes its ornamentation also. “Ornament” is merely the decoration of a thing constructed. Ornament is thus necessarily limited, for, so defined, it cannot be other than secondary, and must not usurp a principal place; if it does so, the object is no longer a work ornamented, but is degraded into a mere ornament” (Jones, O) One can imagine his opinion on craft artworks, existing just for the sake of ornament. He wasn’t the only one who thought this; Henry Cole (1808–1882), Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820–1877), and Richard Redgrave were just some of the men at the time who contributed to this movement. The obvious fact that these are all men is a great contradiction to the woman dominated hobby of fibre craft.
I hope that my work offers reflection and intimacy, with a nuanced commentary on colonial whenua and gender politics.
6. How is the way you are saying it, with the materials, techniques and themes, the best for the idea you want to present?
I choose to work with embroidery and paint because of the interesting relationship the two can have on a canvas, both physically and conceptually. At times, the materials unify and even mimic each other, creating an ongoing extension of marks or direct quotations of each other. Elsewhere, the materials collide and highlight physical differences.
Some of the larger histories, contexts and overarching ideas within my practice can be achieved, or at least opened up to, by simply using these materials together. For example, the use of embroidery in my practice may allude to areas of the art world like feminism, craft and the decorative. There are histories of ornament tied into both craft and painting where it has been at times seen as pejorative, so by conjoining the two a new commentary is created.
These materials also provide me a language for blending an array of themes and subject matters together, for example alluding to the parchment of Te Tiriti o Waitangi while also speaking to painting and its histories. The materials allow me to portray subject matter in as unified or divided, as realistic or abstract as the artwork needs.
7. What is it you’ve been trying to do to make the work relevant in relation to ideas, cultural circumstances or contemporary issues?
Reflecting on the past can be a tool to create commentary or questions around contemporary issues. The male dominated world of painting has existed for a long time, and alluding to the decades of women who have been affected by this hopefully implies the existence of it today. I also aim to blur the line between painting and craft in order to examine the hierarchies of these materials both on the canvas, and within the art world.
The signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and The Treaty of Waitangi is a huge moment in Aotearoa’s history. While it has pathed the context of Aotearoa today, some of the implications both historically and currently have created injustice to Maori. This is of course a huge subject, so I am specifically using my personal heritage to reflect on this, as I am a descendent from one of the signers of Te Tiriti, Moengaherehere. While I am researching and learning broad Maori ideas around Te Tiriti, I do not wish to create a particularly broad statement because my pakeha upbringing conflicts some of these ideas. My Maori/Pakeha identity has not experienced much of the negative impact of Te Tiriti, which is why presenting personal Whakapapa in my work and keeping the broader narratives in my research ensures I do not speak for people wider than my identity and limited racially-relevant experiences. By referencing Te Tiriti in my work alongside colonial motifs like bromeliads and particular decorative embroidery, I wish to allude to some of these impacts of Te Tiriti in modern Aotearoa.
8. How does your current work relate to your previous work?
Over the years my practice has included a variety of mediums, subject matter and intentions. One thing that has carried through my practice for a long time is landscape in a broad sense. Although my processes and outcomes when looking at landscape has changed, the general ideas of depth and place has stayed as a core interest in my work. This is often through creating spatial illusion, whether it be through realistic rendering and trompe l’oeil or layering of contrasting gestures. Even before incorporating embroidery into my paintings, I’ve been interested in playing different conventions off each other, for example flatness/illusion and provisional/modelled.
After completing my BFA which explored hierarchal differences in the art world via referencing and honouring New Zealand female artists, I created a body of work ‘Haberdashery’ which perhaps stripped back some of these ideas to look at the fundamental relationship between embroidery and paint. I am continuing to look at this relationship, through a shift in subject matter and widening of research.
9. How does this work fit into a larger body of work or overarching project of ideas (if it does)?
This work maintains the values and some processes of my BFA work Continuing a Landscape Genealogy and following exhibition Haberdashery, however I am focusing more specifically on the heritage element of my practice via gardens, specific landscapes and my whakapapa.
Most recently, I am looking into my father’s side of the family and Maori whakapapa. While this continues my enquiry into heritage and using personal signifiers in my work, it opens up a new area of research into Te Tiriti o Waitangi, colonisation and culturally significant relationships like with nga whenua.
As my ideas are shifting within the framework of craft, gardens and heritage; I am interested in expanding to a broader societal commentary while maintaining the intimacy of my current and previous work.
10. How did your ideas change (if they did) to this point? Or, how are your ideas changing (if they are)?
My interest in landscape began as a means to improve technical painting abilities like colour matching. It has now shaped into a more deliberate reason for being in my work. I look at more specific places that have deliberate relationships between myself or other artworks and themes, such as the gardens and specific whenua of my whakapapa.
Similarly, I began looking at embroidery because of the visual impact it has when manipulated alongside paint. I then became more interested in the histories around this material and contextual implications of using it, especially when the works began to read as a juxtaposition within the canvas.
Developing my interest in embroidery and its histories, my newest enquiry of ideas is upholstery. As a fresh body of work in the making, I have yet to study particular research around this and am simply experimenting with making. So far this has translated into upholstered canvases with layers of foam in between the cotton and frame.
I have also upholstered a wooden chair which was made by my dad when their house was being built 20 years ago out of leftover wood from the building site. This backstory draws an interesting connection to when I paint upon my grandmother’s artwork, as it becomes an intergenerational collaboration. I am upholstering this chair as a nod to the industrialisation appeal of hard wood and bared screws, or rather the Arts and Crafts Movement ideology of DIY as a means of getting something better crafted than what warehouses will make. I then clash these design fundamentals by painting onto the upholstered canvas chair, thus removing its usefulness.
Upholstery is a further push of my embroideries into objecthood, and I am interested in how this will develop alongside the rest of my ideas. Men like William Morris insist that mass production is ‘altogether an evil,’ whereas I am more interested perhaps in what Amy Stewart wrote for Whitespace’s 2015 show ‘Functional’; ‘…and while objects (or ideas) that have had the title of arthood bestowed upon them are reified, the banality of a certain class of objects has its own domestic sanctity. These objects have a function (which is not a dirty word!) and that utility does not by definition strip them of their arthood.’ (Stewart, A.)
11.Has anyone done this kind of work in the past?
Although my work transitions between both embroidery and paint, I consider its main historic influence to be landscape, in the form of painting. Artist Per Kirkeby occupied a terrain of abstract landscape that I think overlaps with some of my ideas. He stated ‘my canvas is the plot of land and my colours—that is, the matter of paint itself—are the soil, the flower beds, with their different components and varying textures’ (Kirkeby, P.) this description articulates my enjoyment of thickly applied paint as a sort of growth off a canvas, where an abstract mark can become foliage and wavering horizon points, depending on the space around it. His use of the canvas in its entirety, where each painting’s world is dictated by its own rules of gravity, lightness and growth, encompasses the viewer with a vague sense of reality that’s only hinted at with earthly palettes and figurative marks. This play between surreal and landscape, abstract and figurative, taught me the difference between a landscape as we see in real life, versus a landscape painting. His paintings inspire my own compositional layouts to form within the rules of each individual painting.
Per Kirkeby, Herbst-Anastasis X, 1997. Oil on canvas. 2000 x 1700mm
Barbara Tuck, Arai te Uru, 2013. Oil on board. 790 x 790mm (bottom)
Per Kirkeby’s work reminds me of Aotearoa’s own Barbara Tuck, and while her contemporary practice is best suited for the following question, I feel that her deconstructions of landscape painting resonate strongly with Kirkeby’s. The intimate detail that often encompasses the canvas in its entirety, with each section of the canvas prioritised equally, shows such earthly reference that, as Eye Contact Magazine describes, ‘it is even possible to forget that these are imaginary landscapes.’ This idea of leading the viewer into a lucidly familiar scene that reimagines our own reality helps us rethink our own relationship with land, and the things that occupy the grounds around us. Like Kirkeby, Tuck’s work reminds me to ground each painting as its own world. Differently from Kirkeby though, the Aotearoa influence and local environment that reflects in Tuck’s work is a huge importance with how it relates to me. No matter how abstract, these signifiers make a commentary about not just anywhere, but Aotearoa’s land and our personal relationship with it.
12.Does anyone else do it now? Who are the artists that occupy this terrain?
Erica van Zon’s use of delicately detailed embroidery and beading alongside structural materials and stained glass is a wonderful way of enlarging (both physically and conceptually) the limiting parameters of embroidery. Unlike my own work which expands on embroidery at the centre, Erica uses it as a product of her enquiry into installation as a whole. ‘From neon signs to crochet-hook rugs, vampy performances to ceramics to calligraphic posters, Van Zon turns to one medium, then another. Predominantly an installation artist she creates certain kinds of rooms or milieux, ones that feature either very simple objects or ones constructed from quite mundane or hobbyist materials’ (Artist bio) I enjoy Van Zon’s use of the delicate and mundane in a gallery context, of which the environment becomes her own creation. ‘Her loving parodies and crooked translations are tenderly made and although awkward her appropriations are always studied and thoughtful. Examining shared visual cultures with nostalgia as well as a sense of the ridiculous, Van Zon creates little touching tributes, quiet homages that are striking, imperfect and delightful’ the sense of nostalgia, and embracement of decoration and hobbyist materials, resonates within my own practice. Her outputs of dressing the room and encompassing large materials is different to my own process, in which each object is created first to then fit within the gallery space together.
Vita Cochran creates textile works that seem to have similar materials and contextual frameworks to some of my work. I am interested in the relationship she creates between craft and painting, particularly in her series in ‘Painting Painting Painting’ where she brings historically painted rugs to life. Her three-dimensional approach varies from my typically canvas-focused work, but I love the narrative that her work carries with the richly textile-based and unapologetically decorative materials. Faig Ahmed is another artist within the terrain, who describes his work as a way to ‘…Utilise traditional decorative craft and the visual language of carpets into contemporary sculptural works of art. His work reimagines ancient craft and creates new visual boundaries by deconstructing traditions and stereotypes.’ (Ahmed, F.)
Emma Mcintyre’s paintings slowly build colour to the surface, particularly in her perfectly titled show Heat (Mossman Gallery.) Neon yellows and burning umbers encompass the viewer with their feverish intensity. I enjoy the boldness of her work which prioritises colour in a way that seems to drive her practice. The titling of work is particularly clever, and gives the viewer just the right amount of reference, figuration or emotive cue.
Emma McIntyre, Veils, 2020. Oil and flashe on linen, 1215 x 1675mm
Textiles have appeared in her work too, with ‘Grid (denims)’ appearing in her 2018 show as a reflection/response to the similarly composed paintings. The relationship formed by the stitched lines and varying blue shades to the carefully structured application of paint, makes a similar connection to what I am trying to achieve in some of my work. Although the viewer knows the material, especially up close, there is a nice moment of trickery where the similar compositions allow the viewer to unite the two together.
Emma McIntyre, Grid (denims), 2018. Stitched and stretched recycled denim 1600x2200mm (left)
Emma McIntyre, Pink Square Sways, 2017. Installation view: Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland (right)
Whilst today I admire Emma McIntyre’s work, throughout the 1980s my grandma greatly admired Emma’s grandfather, Peter McIntyre. Gran’s favourite painting was his rendition of an Otago landscape, which she copied from a print as a way of practicing painting.
Peter’s work (left) was replicated by my gran, (centre) which I replicated for a body of work during my BFA (right.) I enjoy this parallel lineage, and I also wonder if Emma McIntyre’s heritage has an influence on her contemporary practice.
13. Who are the writers on these subjects? What specifically have they said, which motivates your own thinking for your work potentially?
Reading about the contextual part of my practice and the histories of the mediums I am using is lacking. It’s a huge reason I am undertaking my MFA, so I am just beginning to build substance in this area.
Rather than properly answering this question yet as I’m not quite there, I’ll indicate the start I’ve made here.
With an interest in addressing Te Tiriti o Waitangi in my artwork, I would like to better research and understand the events around the signing itself, as well as its subsequent contemporary issues today. F.M Brookfield is established in this field of writing and research. With many years as Professor of Public Law at the University of Auckland and a doctoral thesis about the legitimacy of state succession following revolution, I am interested in studying his strongly-researched practice as a grounded view of historical events.
His experience as a voluntary legal adviser assisting Maori involved in constitutional or land matters encourages me to view his work as an advocate for Maori, thus less likely to be clouded with judgment or prejudice.
I understand that given a lot of his work was published over two decades ago, it may be inaccurate to consider it a portrayal of these politics today, however as an analytical summary of events and subsequent legal matters it stands as strong research. I will follow this with further reading on contemporary Tiriti matters, from the perspective of both pakeha and Maori.
Embroidery, textiles and craft has a vast history across different countries and cultures. While I am familiar with some local histories and specific movements, I aim to deepen my knowledge by first researching embroidery/textile histories relevant to specific places.
I have gotten out the books ‘Chinese Embroidery – An Illustrated Stitch Guide’ by Shai Xiaocheng and ‘Textiles of Timor – Island in the Woven Sea’ by Roy W.Hamilton and Joanna Barrkman to enrichen knowledge on the role of embroidery in specific cultures. I’ve also gotten out ‘New Zealand’s Historic Samplers – Our Stitched Stories’ by Vivien Caughley for some local narratives and ‘Threads of Life – A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle’ by Clare Hunter for a broad and comprehensive novel on embroidery.
14. Is your field an established one or did you have to invent it? What histories are you contributing to?
The histories of paint and embroidery are ever-evolving, and new artwork in these mediums continue to reference its past self whether as a critique or celebration.
At times there seems to be a paradox where functional craft must not be decorative, and decorative craft must not be functional. At moments where an object both, where does it stand? Even my non-functional creations speak to this ongoing conversation, as they are actively non-functional in a world where it was once a disgrace to add decoration to something with no purpose. Other contemporary craftsmen and artists speak to this, for example Faig Ahmed’s rugs which although constructed out of a historically useful object, lose all its functionality through the process of it becoming art.
· Ahmed, Faig. Artist website bio. Copyright 2022.
· Archives New Zealand. Ngā Tohu Wāhine and Te Tiriti o Waitangi
https://www.archives.govt.nz/discover-our-stories/nga-tohu-wahine-and-te-tiriti-o-waitangi
· Archives New Zealand. (image.) Treaty Signatories.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/signatory/1-47
· Barcio, Phillip. ‘What Per Kirkeby Left Behind’ (Blog Post.) May 16, 2018.
https://www.ideelart.com/magazine/per-kirkeby
· Jones, Owen. Supplementary Report on Design, 1852. Retrieved from:
https://www.northernarchitecture.us/gothic-architecture-2/from-supplementary-report-on-design-1852.html
· Kirkeby, Per. Herbst-Anastasis X, 1997. Oil on canvas. 2000 x 1700mm (image)
https://www.magasin3.com/en/artwork/herbst-anastasis-x-2/
· McIntyre, Emma. Grid (denims), 2018. Stitched and stretched recycled denim 1600x2200mm (image) retrieved from:
https://mossman.gallery/artists/emma-mcintyre/images/
· McIntyre, Emma . Pink Square Sways, 2017. Installation view: Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland (image) retrieved from:
https://mossman.gallery/artists/emma-mcintyre/images/
· Stewart, Amy. On Form With Function. June 30th, 2015.
http://www.astewartwriting.com/blog/2015/6/30/on-form-with-function
· Tuck, Barbara. Arai te Uru, 2013. Oil on board. 790 x 790mm (image)
https://annamilesgallery.com/artists/barbara-tuck/
