Art attack Christchurch Art Gallery curator Melanie Oliver showcases five talented South Island artists whose work features in the gallery’s significant new show Spring Time is Heart-break. WORDS MELANIE OLIVER
Arts | <strong>Magazine</strong> 69 THIS PAGE: Luke Shaw, ‘SUN TURN (Sugarloaf towards Lyndhurst)’, 2023. Steel, timber, sound. Duration 52 mins 13 secs. Courtesy of the artist. OPPOSITE: Priscilla Rose Howe, ‘Festering in me’, 2023. Flashe, acrylic, oil pastel on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Jhana Millers Gallery, Wellington. In development for over a year, our summer exhibition Spring Time is Heart-break includes 24 contemporary artists from all around Aotearoa and an exciting array of ambitious and challenging new works. The process involved many visits to artist studios and conversations over laptops, so it’s spine-tingling to see them in person, installed and presented together. We were keen to ensure that local artists were part of the show, and the following artist projects were selected from eight who are based in Te Waipounamu. Embracing environmental concerns, personal histories and collective futures, I see this as a snapshot of contemporary art from some of the most perceptive makers and thinkers. What is urgent for us now? How can we reflect on our past, communication, archives and correspondence, as well as what the future might hold? While the world is full of turmoil, it’s uplifting to see artists creating meaningful responses, connections and digressions. LUKE SHAW Luke Shaw is an Ōtautahi artist, born and raised in the city. When Luke’s grandfather was working on the construction of the radio and television transmission tower atop Te Heru-o- Kahukura Sugarloaf Hill in the 1960s, he would flash Morse code messages to his wife at their home in Aranui using steel offcuts, and she would reply with the reflections from a mirror. This narrative was the starting point for Luke’s work ‘SUN TURN (Sugarloaf towards Lyndhurst)’ (2023). Following his ongoing interest in sound and obsolete technologies, for the exhibition Luke had a large analogue reverb plate constructed from steel. When encountering the sculpture in the gallery, the sound that can be heard is the reverberation of an audio signal retelling his version of this family story in Morse code. Luke has treated it as a musical composition, using words as notes, tempo elongated into sustained drones. He asks us to listen beyond this private language; to reflect on what the historical messages might have been – most likely sweet, domestic expressions of love – and tests their resonance for us today in an era of accelerated, overwhelming and constant communication. Listening in on the past, mediated by Luke, prompts us to look at forms of communication: as a way of locating ourselves, how the transmission of a signal might operate, and the potential for that signal to be received or intercepted. MEGAN BRADY Megan Brady (Kāi Tahu, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, Pākehā) has returned to Christchurch for the year to reconnect with her Ngāi Tūāhuriri whakapapa and the Rakahuri awa (river). Her father grew up in Waitaha but didn’t know it was his ancestral whenua – this dislocation an ongoing effect of colonisation. For Spring Time is Heart-break, Megan has been reforming relationships with the distinct braiding of the Rakahuri river systems and the mana whenua of the area to create a sprawling hand-tufted carpet installation, ‘Entangled and turning we are river’. The title uses translations of rakahuri: raka, to be entangled, crossed, and huri, to turn around or to turn; and refers to Hone Tuwhare’s poem ‘The river is an island’. Installed under the stairs on the ground floor of Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Megan designed this carpet to be a site of rest and conversation for visitors to the Gallery, in the same way that the banks of the river carry stories of leisure, sustenance and identity. Flowing black lines loosely translate the pathways of the river. Islands of colour are formed where they intersect and overlap, reflecting Megan’s tūpuna (ancestors) and memories of this landscape. A simplified pattern inspired by aramoana tāniko [a weaving pattern which translates to ‘pathways of the sea’) appears at the edges of the carpet, both a zigzagging pathway to the ocean and a visual representation of the people that have been important to Megan while embarking on this project. As you relax on the rugs, Megan invites you to consider your own histories and the waters that define you and perhaps share a river story.
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