Taurerewa's paintings sculptural and towering

Lorene Taurerewa makes strong use of geometry and anatomy. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Words like harrowing or draining do not go with the romantic vision of the creative at work. The fact that the beginning of any artistic process can be fraught with anxiety, fear or uncertainty is often left out of the picture.

Lorene Taurerewa admits the start of a project is something she actively dreads. "I will avoid it as long as I can. I will walk the length of my room. I will try to do everything else before I begin."

Taurerewa's Big Drawings at Lopdell House are an exercise in releasing the need for ultimate perfection. She says the series is also an attempt at knowing when to stop.

"You can't really stuff up a drawing. This is one thing I try to stress to my students. Just when you think you have stuffed it up, think again. Just keep going."

Taurerewa's work has no neat lines. Smudged charcoal on dog-eared paper, with cut and pasted additions are common, which might go against viewers' expectations. At 2m, Taurerewa's work is almost sculptural.

"I don't want someone walking into the gallery trying to elevate themselves above the work. So, the scale is deliberate. I am trying to move away from someone having a say over the person in my drawing."

That the drawings tower over viewers will not be lost. The drawings are an effort in engagement, causing the eye to look everywhere.

Attention, though, is given to the faces of the models, whether they are are stern, vacant or downright haughty.

The eyes are masked, blacked out. Again, this is deliberate. "When people come to the work, I don't want them to see anybody. I don't want them to see a likeness."

This can explain the mummified androgyny of most of Taurerewa's figures. Some sit as if compressed in space, constrained yet powerful.

On close inspection, you can see how concentration on geometry and anatomy - subjects she says are fundamental to drawing - pushes and pulls the viewer through space, creating a three-dimensional guise.

"I have very high ceilings at home and I put my work up high on my walls. It often happens that I see things shifting and some people have told me they sense movement, an energy which makes things pulsey and animated.

"Space is nothing until you put something in it. You have to energise a space in some way. So, I am trying to breathe some life into my work, trying to activate the space."

When asked about the people in her drawings, Taurerewa laughs. Although she does not work with a model, the people who come out in her drawings are members of her family.

Since spending considerable time researching her genealogy, Taurerewa thinks it only natural that family come out in her work, whether it be from her mother's Samoan/Chinese side or her father's European side.

"My drawings are often conceptual. I am not worried about a model in my mind. Through years of drawing, you become quite adept at knowing where things go.

"I am not thinking of a particular likeness - I could sit down and draw somebody today, but when I look at it the next day it ends up looking like a member from my family line." 
 
Exhibition

*What: Big Drawings, Lorene Taurerewa
*Where and when: Lopdell House, Titirangi, to May 22