Di ffrench's Opera on the Whanganui 1996. Cibachrome on powdered aluminium. Collection of Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery. Purchased 1996.
In the current show Āhua Rerekē: Curious Works from the Collection, curators Greg Donson and Cecelia Kumeroa were looking for works that spoke to a continuing fascination with the supernatural.
Unearthing an expansive selection of works that is also a testament to the breadth of the collection, it is a feast fit for Te Pātaka.
The exhibition is a bountiful exploration into the process of meaning-making when dealing with the mysterious or the unknown – and the power of poetics to bring us closer to our inner truth as mediator.
What we see in the work is revealing as to the stories we tell ourselves in order to make sense of that which cannot be known.
The show’s title, Āhua Rerekē, can be interpreted as something that seems a bit different – it connotes an unsettling feeling, stirring up confusion or curiosity. The supernatural has always been fertile ground for storytelling – myth, legend and song – to inspire and connect us to that which is beyond.
Three particular works - Whenua ki te Whenua: Earth Bound by Chris Bryant-Toi, Silhouettes – The Egg Series by Jean Zuber and Opera on the Whanganui by Di ffrench - all depict waka as a vessel for carrying the main drama of the work.
Opera on the Whanganui is a work by my grandmother, Di ffrench. Featuring my sister, it references the well-known “girl with a canoe” image by Frank Denton. In 1993, ffrench wrote in a letter to gallery director Bill Milbank that she was concerned with “how the communication of utterly different understandings creates dislocation”.
A waka is a metaphor for whakapapa and our earthly home, as the centre of that genealogy, moving through the universe with all of us aboard. Through whakapapa, our ancestors and descendants are actively contributing to the narratives that live in us and the shaping of our ideas.
Knowing where we come from, we can ask: Who am I in relation to this place? Where do I stand? Our differences can become dialogues that place new layers of meaning on these works within the context of today.
ffrench also references the famous Wagner opera Tristan and Isolde, a medieval legend of English orphan Tristan who falls in love with Irish princess Isolde. Set in the mythical sixth century, after the fall of the Roman Empire, their love was forbidden and precarious against a backdrop of political unrest.
In her notes from this series of works, ffrench wrote: “I am exploring the sites where drama/conflict manifests or is initiated. Sites can exist within mythologies, popular culture and the concepts of ownership pertaining to the development/forming of these mythologies. We move through our landscapes projecting onto them fragmented histories.”
Also featuring in Āhua Rerekē, Swiss artist Jean Zuber’s work Silhouettes – The Egg Series is from his 2002 Tylee residency.
During his time in Whanganui, Zuber was particularly interested in a sense of belonging centred around the concept of “whakapapa” – connecting people to their ancestors, lands, oceans and the universe.
Zuber was known for his use of geometric forms, lines and planes of colour in his artwork. In this series, he offers an impression of the bicultural environment in Aotearoa with the symbolic use of eggs, cross forms and the colours red, black and white.
“What struck me is the identity and sense of belonging contained in the key word whakapapa,” Zuber said.
“It is what I portray in the shape of the egg – the symbol of the universe. This shape has become the link which runs through this series of paintings. I hope viewers will recognise in the synthesis of the shapes a poetic definition of this country.”
Whenua ki te Whenua: Earth Bound by Chris Bryant-Toi is made with painted, charred wood in the shape of a vessel that appears ready to propel forward.
The waka drawings on it make me think of navigators, traversing the oceans via the stars to find land again. Whenua ki te whenua is also an expression we use to honour the practice of returning the placenta (whenua) back to the land (whenua). As a mother, my mind recalls the sacred task of carrying a new soul “earth bound” from the spirit world.
My mind returns again to whakapapa, genealogy, connections. Ocean to shore: from the egg to the first watery home we inhabit in our mother’s womb, to the world of light and land. The life experiences of our ancestors ripple through our daily life – Wagner’s leitmotif, providing thematic anchors, “guides to feeling”, which evolve alongside the drama as it plays out. Perhaps lifting the mind’s eye to the supernatural can allow us to locate ourselves in the eternal flow of whakapapa we all exist within – and from here greet the unexpected.
The show itself is an excellent display of the art history in the collection, and particularly how our colonial history touches everything that we are experiencing, past, present and future.
Works such as Kingfisher Squadron by Emily Valentine Bullock, New Zealand before I saw it, also by Zuber, the Kōruru eyes in After Image by Adrian Jackman, and Karanga to the forest by Douglas MacDiarmid, all seem to reach for an understanding, making-sense-of, examining who we are from fragmented histories. By all accounts, on first encounter, curiosity came before conflict.