My work is concerned with the ongoing pressures that urban development has on native ecosystems. The ever creeping housing developments bleed into the land scape; boundaries change and push native forests back, and roads lay new paths like rivers through tall trees. An outsider of this land(what do you mean by being an outsider of the land?) Through this investigation, I am attempting to navigate my way through these complex issues and develop an understanding of this conflicted landscape that we inhabit.
Through an internal questioning of self-identity I attempt to place myself into the ideas and how I could understand to approach them. My investigation into this area was initially inspired by nature but I quickly came to the realization that the natural history of Aotearoa is layered and conflicted. Traditional landscape painting was an early form of colonialism, painted to become a perfect ‘ideal’ landscape to advertise. Through this understanding I took a step back to consider the impact of colonialism on the landscape, both currently and in the future. Some particular issues that arose for me are: farming and agriculture (which impacts and pollutes soils and also river streams), and the impact of built infrastructures such as housing and roads. Native plants are under pressure as invasive and introduced flora and fauna are introduced. The landscape is becoming less recognizable as our historical concept of ‘Aotearoa’ and we must negotiate our new relationship with the land.
In my work I am attempting to highlight these issues through my own investigation of landscape painting. My paintings derive from my own drawings and photographs taken from specific locations within the Waikato which I have explored. The materials I have selected have a specific relationship to building materials and urban development. My paintconsists of left over house paint that I have been collecting. It is sometimes mixed in with other old paints to slightly alter the hues of my studied location, and in this way my paintings are both a visual document of a scene and an internal reflection.
In my final paintings, the specific visual information from the location has been manipulated and shifted over time and my revisiting of the area. These works do not have a ‘final’ completed form, they sit in a select space in time, often questioning their own existence and place, some pieces have been developed over a span of months while others only hours. The act of covering up areas of the painting with paint or other elements, helps to suggest a layering of observation and developments, that come through the process of time.
Being born outside of Aotearoa with parents born in England and Fiji, I attempt to question my own position within my work, highlighting ideas of being Tauiwi or non-Māori approaching ideas such as ‘Restoring’ systems of Aotearoa and figuring out what that may mean and how one might think of going about these ideas being someone who is not from this land.
In my research I have been interested in reflections and critiques on the relationship of Maori and Pakeha to the land of Aotearoa. ‘Restoring’ is a term Moana Jackson refers to in place of ‘decolonising’, a term which raises Māori up and invests in their mana, to restore Aotearoa and its history, and its stories.
Additionally terminology surrounds ‘restoring’ in words such as ‘reclaiming’ this suggests a building up and re-claiming of Indigenous whenua, benefiting ideas in which to decolonize. [1]
Some questions I have: Am I visiting these natural spaces to make or to get away? How does anyone place themselves into a fragile system built to look strong? What part do I play and how do I act this role out? For now I tread on small concrete bricks, like many others have and will have.
Bibliography reference
Jackson, Moana. “5. Where to next? Decolonisation and the stories in the land,” in Imagining Decolonisation, edited by Anna Hodge, 133 – 155. Aotearoa: Bridget Williams Books Ltd; Wellington, 2020.
[1]Moana Jackson. Imagining Decolonisation(Aotearoa: Bridget Williams Books Ltd, 2020), 133 – 155.
Llenyd Price 