Letters to McCahon

By MALCOLM BURGESS

The huge words in I AM III repeat themselves over and over in what could seem an autistic manner.

With time they lose their abstract meaning, and become towering hieroglyphs. But this is fitting for a show whose title could as easily refer to an Egyptian pharaoh as a case of multiple personality disorder.

As with autism, the easy responses to I AM III tend to dissolve upon the realisation that these works might be close to the raw truth that lies beneath the confusion of the everyday.

Southland-based painter Nigel Brown clearly has a secular obsession with "the Word". Like his first two series of paintings on this theme, his latest show continues to echo Colin McCahon's most recognisable pictorial declaration - "I AM". It is also big on text, symbolism and cartoonish stylings.

Unlike his spiritual touchstone, however, Brown's meanderings are agnostic reflections upon the religious questions posed by the artist he says has been so influential in his career.

"My 'I AM's are not tied to a Christian point of view and often 'we are' is just as important," writes Brown by fax from Cosy Nook, his remote Shangri La at the bottom of the South Island. Indeed, new canvases titled In PassingLight and So much progress feature the plural shift that twists the renowned artistic axiom to Brown's own ends.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves - there are also beginnings to consider. "Whilst I started the 'I AM's as a confrontation with McCahon's work, this has waxed and waned," writes Browns in response to my questions.

"The idea of lettering imposing itself interests me more than faith and a wide variety of philosophical ideas get explored. I'd emphasise the word 'explored' rather than manifesting a creed as such."

McCahon, it seems, was just a casting-off point, but one that has obviously supplied Brown with rich ground for comment. "I think the reference to McCahon is about sailing close up to that large figure in New Zealand art and large influence in my career and celebrating him by being myself. In a sense it may be a way past McCahon, not a stopping in McCahon."

Like its forerunners, I AM III is soaked in symbolism - so much so that solid shapes literally tumble from the insoluble mix.

"It's the way I think most powerfully as a painter drawing on my subconscious hopes and fears and investing objects with meaning," says Brown. "I've been influenced by symbolism in a wealth of artists from Edvard Munch to Max Bechman to the symbolic basis of Maori art, to name a few."

He also cites repetition in Bill Hammond's work as another influence.

Alongside McCahon's candles, pyramids litter Brown's latest paintings. They have no definition as such, he says, but are rather a useful artistic tool. The idea of turning the shadow into a pyramid interested him as response to the flatness of McCahon's work "as if I was reasserting depth", he says. The looming Iraq War and Middle East mess gave the pyramid further resonance.

"On one level a pyramid may mean a reasoned mathematical shape; on another be Egyptian with all that culture implies, but it may be simply a shape that contrasts well with the candle."

Likewise, a candle can mean hope, faith, sex, primitive technology, time and so forth, he says.

I AM III goes a step further, combining pure symbolism with the style of comics - a language of symbols, in itself. "In my work there is a tension between solid form, serious symbols and a certain schematic simplification that may be close to the comic style."

If McCahon was obsessed by faith, Brown finds a certain faith in questions.

"It is risky, but yes, the word 'faith' is a bit loaded for me and even though I've done a couple of church projects, the ideas of pure light, bare hills and all power to above don't motivate me ...

"The idea from McCahon that looms largest for me is his questioning - which was conversational - and that's stayed strongly."

Curiously, Brown hasn't seen the McCahon retrospective, A Question of Faith. More influential for him was a photocopy of McCahon's candle works that appeared in a show at Lopdell House in Auckland 2000.

Brown manages to play around so casually with the object of the art establishment's adulations because his work has something else to offer. "I think in 'using McCahon' there is an element of provocation to some people - maybe those McCahon purists, the academics, curators - but unless my work has its own integrity and momentum the use falls flat, certainly over three groups of such work."

A strong theme in I AM III appears to be that technology is changing New Zealand identity. The best pictures feature common Brownian motifs, but at a remove - the bowl is on a television screen, there's a picture of a candle, and a book featuring the word 'we'. In So much progress, an IT egg-head sits at a computer, while symbols balance precariously one upon the other in building-block fashion. Brown, for his part, is "very glad I've got a reliable car, living in a remote location, and a satellite dish for Sky TV".

It is a measured investigation of that theme, full of paradoxes, and devoid of judgment, despite the labels and textual declarations. "Whilst I have a love of a certain New Zealand environment, I'm well aware of it being under threat and the contradictions of contemporary living. It is easier in some ways to explore issues in art than it would be through say politics where politicians pretend to provide answers. Artists can comfortably offer questions back to their audience."

And questioning is the key to being an artist, he says. "As an artist I feel you must re-question everything and certainly be aware of change. On another level though, artists can be buffers against change and reassert the past again, so it's quite complex."

As one of the first New Zealand artists to journey to Antarctica, and living nowadays in such a remote place, Brown seems very much the outsider.

Although he doesn't cherish the thought of being described in such a way, he understands how people could see him in such a light. "[Funnily] enough I've just done a painting called The Outsiders, so it must be on my mind as an idea," he scrawls.

Even so, despite the relative solitude, Brown feels he's in good company being a painter. He relates to a long line of questioning expressive painters including McCahon, Giotto, Lowry and Clairmont to name a few.

Wordsmiths, too. "Poets also have a strong place in my awareness, be they Baxter, Gregory O'Brien, Bill Manhire, Stevie Smith or my late father, R.F. Brown. This makes me feel part of a continuum in a changing world where painting struggles for attention."

Brown and partner Sue moved away from Auckland to Southland, for a number of reasons. "Things didn't work out in Northland. Sandringham in Auckland was deteriorating as an environment and we had lived in Auckland 30 years. It was time for a change and an adventure," he says.

Cosy Nook offered scope, fresh challenges and a beautiful environment. "I don't think it was an anti-Auckland decision or pro-Southland one, more a particular place by a wild coast that we couldn't resist."

But this isn't quite the end for Brown's strange fascination with the first-person conjugation, his play on the "raison d'etre". There is more work to come in the "I AM" category, he says. He has plans for I AM IV next March at CoCa in Christchurch, which he says will feature more recent paintings. "I think after that the 'I AM' and candle motifs will fade from use; that's the pattern with symbols - you need to evolve and move on."

Visual arts

* What: Nigel Brown, I AM III

* Where: Warwick Henderson Gallery

* When: From August 5 to August 30