Tension of war lingers in landscape

INTIMATIONS of mortality, Wanganui's troubled past and the low clouds of winter combined to produce an austere body of work from artists-in-residence Charles Butcher and Cobi Cockburn.

The couple returned to Australia last week, after a year in Wanganui with seven months at Tylee Cottage. On February 15, at the Sarjeant Gallery, they told an audience of about 50 about their show, The Long Black Veil.

It comprises large, abstract works in metal, paint and glass, in colour tones of black, white, grey and the orange of rust.

They were working toward filling up the gallery's biggest rear space, and were thinking big.

"I wanted you to feel immersed within something," Cockburn said.

Donson said: "You have to travel these works to get the full effect of them."

Before they came to New Zealand, Butcher read the history of the country aloud to Cockburn. Tales of the musket wars in the early 1800s made a big impression on him. "New Zealand changed forever, spiritually and physically, as soon as those weapons turned up," he said.

At Tawhiti Museum the two found out more about the wars, and talked with Wanganui artist Julian Bailey.

Cockburn said they felt the "unresolved tension" in the landscape. The "black veil" in the show's title refers to those turbulent early colonial times, which are not spoken of often.

Cockburn's work is a response to the notion of bullets still found in the landscape. Butcher worked with explosives to create a work referencing the trade in tattooed heads.

Both have worked in muted colours for the last few years, and Butcher said last winter's endless grey days had a profound effect on him. "I felt squashed and suffocated by the clouds. They were so close I felt I could reach out and touch them."

Their work was influenced by Colin McCahon. It has been compared to that of Ralph Hotere, which Cockburn said was flattering.

The two met at Sydney College of the Arts, travelled and started a family. They set up a studio on the south coast of New South Wales, before doing post-graduate work at the Australian National University in Canberra.

They said their Wanganui work should stay in New Zealand, because it belongs here. And it's not finished yet.

"This show is going to take a long time to digest. We haven't finished making work about New Zealand yet. It will take a year or two to resolve how we feel here."

They said they would likely return to Australia and look at their own country's history. "I know it's not very pretty history. It's not pretty at all," Butcher said.