ORAL PRESENTATION

Oral presentation surrounding my practice. I found the feedback and discussions that came from this presentation went well and opened up future possibilities and areas of investigations. Discussions surrounding what landscape may mean and possible politics of landscapes and how as an outsider I approach ideas of conservation and whenua. Also highlighted were how object support or can be used in exhibition and how I deal with the objects and apparatus used.

1. Kia ora, welcome
2. Today I will be running through some simple systems of my work, Starting off with a bit of context about myself and practice and making the way down to how I see my work occupying space with future installations.
3. Immigrating to Aotearoa when I was young coming from a mixed house hold, mum being Fijian Indian and dad from the UK, I’ve always found myself as out of touch to my surrounding or not fully fitting in. To me I had always been drawn to the natural world, growing up around a mother who has a farming back ground and dad who is a botanist. plants have been one thing which I have grown up and been surrounded by. Having this back ground and understanding I found myself later on in life attracted to the natural world and happened to live in Aotearoa. I didn’t know what my place was or how to approach my surroundings or how to position myself with in the environments which I happened to exist in. I find myself trying to fit in or do ‘right’ and hope that I am respectful to my surroundings which or where ever I seem to be.
4. Through an internal questioning of self-identity I attempt to place myself into my ideas and how I could understand to approach them. My investigation into this area was initially inspired by nature but 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 present a perfect ‘ideal’ landscape. 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. Through this infrastructure native plants become under pressure with the introduction of invasive and non-native flora and fauna. The landscape is becoming less recognizable as our historical concept of ‘Aotearoa’ and we must negotiate our new relationship with the land.
5. 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 paint consists of left over house paint that I have been collecting. It is sometimes mixed in with other found and recycled 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.
6. 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, such as wall filler,  helps to suggest a layering of observation and developments, that come through the process of time.
7. In my work I am interested in how the landscape is framed and presented in diagrams and drawings in both a representative and aspirational way. The images show Architectural models of the river side and landscape plans of expansion and development alongside the river and rural areas. I enjoy the forms and shapes and overlapping  imagery that don’t mix or match perfectly. Light comes from many angels and shapes are flattened and over lapped while others sit awkwardly coming outwards. The figure sits awkwardly in these images.  I tried to create an almost awkward figure in my own paintings that related to these development plans, mimicking the photoshopped effect where lighting comes from multiple directions or is super composed on top of each other, giving a sense of a constructed realism and having an unreal connection to the physical world.
8. I have visited and documents spaces like this, places within Kirikiriroa, from new developments around Ngāruawāhia to new developments down river in Tamahere. My paintings respond and reflect on these vistas, Painted over multiple visits, the paintings are an accumulation of different times.
9. Near by are native forest which resides along the outskirts of these developing rural suburbs which will possibly be destroyed for further housing development. The land here is flourishing with native flora and fauna and although these spaces appear untouched, faint sounds of cars and trucks going by can be heard along with the occasional sounds of construction as new houses get built. Although faint, the sounds almost taunt the land, still preserved for now, but its destruction is edging closer, the inevitability of it all looms over the canopy.
   Some of these spaces may not be directly affected in future, due to their geographical location close to the Waikato River, but they are in threat of being lost as quiet places for native fauna.
10. “The only meaning they gave the land was as property which they should own” Moana Jackson discusses the colonial disconnect to what land meant. This misunderstanding and disconnect continued after the new colonists landed on Aotearoa’s shores.
    The idea of Decolonizing is discussed in relation to the history of colonization, stories discussed through journeys of indigenous Māori through Aotearoa but also the rewriting of history from colonization. ‘Restoring’ is a term Jackson refers to in place of ‘decolonising’, a term which brings Māori up and builds them stronger, to restore Aotearoa and its history, its stories.  
    Additionally terminology surrounds ‘restoring’ in words such as ‘reclaiming’ in ways to uphold these ideas surrounding a building up and re-claiming of Indigenous whenua, benefiting ideas in which to decolonize.
11. Land surveys and protection has become a place of research which I am a bit more interested in now than previously. The spaces which I have been looking at sometimes hold these survey and tracking equipment pictured here, many of which go undetected upon first arrival but hide in the background. These tools help scientists understand the life within these ecosystems and often track where to go. Faint Paths weave in and out of the foliage in front, revealing its self the further I trek inwards. 
    Which tools and apparatus are used within the context of ‘conservation’ efforts are ways in which I pin point possible ways of thinking.  Traps and trackers help monitor ecosystems focusing on animals which occupy space, animals such as rats and stoats which destroy and kill native fauna. What draws me to these apparatus is the materials used and those colours and materials conscious of housing developments, often woods, metals but also plastics such as corflute. Like the architectural diagrams, these tracking tools are a visual device for demonstrating something about the landscape which is not immediately visible.
12. Tracking tunnels are made with corflute, the same plastic which is used in housing sign posts advertising the selling of property, but also used in building construction on ‘warning’ or development plans. Tracking tunnels were looked at in relation to the idea of tracking and monitoring, the tunnels cover ink block tracks helping to identify the insects and small mammals living in a habitat. The black colour of the tunnel is a conscious choice to hide itself in between rocks and grasses. Its usual function in the forest is to not stand out, but presented in a white gallery space – the object is drawn out of its ‘intended’ environment, and becomes an object of focus and consideration.
13. Some of the objects I have used previously are map signs, which are found alongside preserved sites such as this one found alongside the Waikato River. The way in which these signs occupy space brought in a new way of viewing ‘paintings’, A focus was made toward how it could help a viewer navigate the gallery space and show imagery on both sides. These objects also helped to hide and reveal objects behind. Maps hold a function within these natural surroundings, as well as information boards which tell the history of the area which they are located.
14. Another functional object that is commonly used in the forests is the Department of Conservation track marker(2009), which is sometimes found plotted along walks and sometimes off the track for surveyors to find certain apparatus.
    Dotted alongside track paths placed at 1.6 m, guide and weave between bush, tracks sometimes faint help link each together. Different coloured markers also mean and direct the park rangers and scientists to specific items such as traps and tunnels. The purpose of choosing the track markers is the idea of navigating land, it becomes an idea which contrasts well with how we as people navigate through cities using road signs and maps, but also looking at the light test done to test visibility. 
15. I also decided to create the shape of the triangle to match the ones used in the forests, as I wanted to focus on exploring possibilities for the light and colour. Colour plays a huge role in my work, and this is a formal element which I would like to explore in a symbolic way – making connections with the signs and symbols used in forest conservation.
16. The colour Green suggests the landscape. Objects painted green will blend into the landscape, to hide instead of stand out. These colour tests consider the idea of the colour green as a place holder for nature. Whether it is naturally or artificially made, it will camouflage its self into the natural surrounding.
17. Recalling back to previous making formats, these three small paintings sit within depictions that are abstracted by colour, in specific the green found along natural walks, this shade of green attempts to blend objects into the landscape, these colours are also regulated and consistently the same shade of green,  a colour which becomes a place holder for the natural world tricking the brain into believing objects are part of nature. What I became drawn to was how it attempted to encapsulate the whole of Aotearoa’s natural environments through a single colour.
    These 3 paintings are also framed in the molds of previous work, hosting the residue of old concrete work left over.
18. This is a digital rendering of mine, using an architecture program used to replicate sections alongside the Waikato river. It uses limited texture packs to indicate sections of land, this limited selection relates back again to the placeholder of colour and material. They signal to a thing that is so broad and full of a diverse range yet in itself it is simplified, symbolic and open-ended.
19. Whilst attempting to research these colours and recreating landscape within an architecture program called sketch up, I started to become interested in what the texture pack materials were and how texture could play a role in navigating the ideas I was interested in with pressures of infrastructure on land. Although this image is presented in a flat digital screen, the mesh-like infrastructure that makes up the image is visible. In the same way, I have been exploring surface texture in the new paintings I have been making, with the addition of material like concrete and filler.
20. by making these works I stumbled across the new Unreal Engine graphics demonstration which explored the polygons and virtual landscapes, these digital and artificial landscapes gained my interest, drawing me in with their realism. I am not a gamer but am interested in how technology can mimic reality.  
    The top image shows how important a light texture is, mimicking the world through our understanding of the ways in which light works, it is innovative and ignites curiosity and questions the real. The lower image consists of what at first glance seems to be noise but is stated as being multiple tringles and other polygonal shapes. In my virtual works I try to exaggerate these simple shapes to make the viewer more aware of the digital quality and simplicity of the tools given, but am also interested in an almost trickery by technology.
21. This is an artwork by Jae Hoon Lee. He says, “This landscape doesn’t exist in reality; instead it is comprised of a series of images of real locations that have been multiplied and manipulated, anchoring it in the realm between fact and fiction.”
    Ideas coming from this installation and the way Lee plays with the approach to imagery resonate and make me ponder how I am dealing with the imagery that I am using and attempting to depict. “This landscape doesn’t exist in reality” touches on the manipulated and said to be between “fact and fiction”. I enjoy the idea of how imagery can become something removed from the original source but still encapsulate the audience or note at that, the information isn’t being lost even if manipulated but in some ways helps question positioning in reality. Having such large works and projections helps create a more interactive experience for the audience and give a slight fantastic or over whelming feeling to the work through scale, senses are brought into the work rather than being distracted by the surrounding.
22. My paintings have elements of construction similar to how a house or building might be constructed. The materials in my work reflect both housing development and path construction along the river. Wood is often the foundation for my work, frames and moulds hold cement, filler and other materials.  I have made cast paintings, similar to the way that you might cast a floor for a new house or bricks for a river walk.
23. In an interview between Dan Arps and Victoria Wynne-Jones they discuss Dan Arps “The Flora Maze” exhibition. Ideas of structures are explored, these structures are seemingly referring to suburban areas and housing fences.  The idea of the fences are shown and discussed to be relating to subdivisions between houses, these are what is discussed as being “personalizing” or “personal” aspects to fences even though they are in a very narrow array in colour choice and design. This is an almost false ‘choice’ in the building and development stage, the fences have a limited range from black through dark browns and whites and off whites, colours which Dan Arps work in ‘ The floral maze’ show consists of.
24. In recent exploration a focus on colour and object has progressed, as well as focusing on certain ideas surrounding regulation in methodology which are code and often reflected in these mediums. I consider my previous paintings and how they have began to speak about myself, but also how I am conscious of the daily approaches I have with regulation with in the natural world. Every brick is the same size, the rails which snakes through un even landscape stay a consistent height, the track markers are all at a constant 90 millimeter by 120 millimeter dimension.
    How I approach making currently holds considerations toward how objects occupy physical space, how the surrounding of these objects changes their readings, removed from the greens and browns to white walls and building infrastructure.
25. New materialism is an idea which I have started to consider recently, or just a re approach to modern material in hopes to give these forms and apparatus a new meaning, not adding anything to the objects but not taking anything away necessarily. With these new materials I hope to reimagine how the objects occupy space but also understand them in a physical and material way. I am hoping to see how testing colours and object can help bring together an installation which will bring new readings focusing on elements over looked with in the objects in relation to their reading inside and outside of a gallery space focusing on formal aspects rather than functionality.
26. Although my work makes these real world references I am also considerate of how these works occupy space and play off of the outside world.