Potaka depicts our love of racing

Aaron Potaka paints upstairs in the old Chronicle building in Drews Ave. PHOTO/STUART MUNRO

A huge horse, tiny rider and idealised track under a blue sky - that's the picture artist Aaron Potaka paints of New Zealand's fascination with racing.

"When New Zealand was colonised by Europeans they uplifted things from their homeland and transposed them here and one of them is the Jockey Club," he said.

"It's a ubiquitous institution in New Zealand cities and towns. The racing club touches everybody in some form or another. Everybody knows about Kiwi and Phar Lap.

"Will it be forever? Will these big patches of land maintain their sizes?"

Mr Potaka helped out at Wanganui's Jockey Club for a few years, and said he made the horse in his picture really big because the horses seemed enormous. He made its rider skinny because slenderness is society's ideal of beauty.

He and several others from the Optiv 101 group of artists are showing their work at Wanganui's Space Gallery, from today until January 30. The show is called Now and Then and it is about change.

Artist Alice Kim's work will be about how a relationship can change from loving to stressful. Inglewood artist Wharehoka Smith has something to say about conflict.

"We aim for peace or resolution and it's our kaupapa through history, but conflict seems to permeate through everything. We scrap like pigs and yet we're above that, supposedly," Mr Potaka said.

Optiv 101 has a second exhibition beginning 10 days later, at Thistle Hall, a community gallery in Wellington's Cuba St. It is called Aotearoa NZL 200, and eight artists have submitted work.

It's about their perception of this country in the 21st century. The Aotearoa in the title alludes to the view of tangata whenua. The NZL is about New Zealand's place in international trade and politics, and the 200 is the 200km between the artists and Wellington.

"We are New Zealanders. We are entitled to come to Wellington to share our voice. We are just as relevant as Bob Jones in his high-rise," Mr Potaka said.

In that show Bernie Steyn will comment on international politics. Maneesha Bahuguna is submitting a series of photographic portraits of herself, titled I Am Also. She is a New Zealander of Indian descent.

OPTIV 101 isn't going to be part of the Open Studios event. He said that was because its base, which is also his studio, is too messy and hard to access.

He graduated from the Quay School of the Arts in 2010 and said it was possible to make a living as an artist. The Optiv 101 group aims to exhibit and to develop its professional practice.

It numbers 20 now and he said he sold work whenever it had a show.

He is disappointed the BFA degree he did is ending and said the Government's restructure of education was too focused on economic values. "There are cultural values and social values and community values to look at as well."

He is not sure whether Wanganui will stay an arts town without that degree course. "I think it will not be immediate but there's the possibility that in 20 years' time Wanganui will have hardly any artists compared to now."