Limited Edition Prints II
2016 – Northland Region
A second set of poster works was commissioned in 2016, specifically featuring work by Northland-based artists Star Gossage (Ngati Wai and Ngati Ruanui), Nicole Charles, Jo Hardy, Kura Te Waru Rewiri (Ngati Pakahi ki Whaingaroa, Ngati Kahu, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Raukawa ki Kauwhata, Ngāti Rangi) and Laurence Aberhart. Series II was launched as part of the exhibition Celebrating Wood: Back To The Future, Gus Fisher Gallery, 27 May – 2 July 2016 featuring photographs by Laurence Aberhart, The New Zealand Tree Project and materials from the University of Auckland Tree Ring Lab.
Series II was produced with support from Chartwell Trust, Creative New Zealand, Opticmix and Soar Print. The artworks were first exhibited at the Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland (see above for current list of exhibitions).
The Kauri Project Poster Series will continue to be added to as an ongoing project, engaging local area artists in other parts of kauri country to build on the series. In this way the poster series will continue to grow with ongoing contributions by established, emerging and student artists.
Review: http://www.metromag.co.nz/culture/art-design/the-kauri-project-poster-series-review/
Images: http://www.artsdiary.co.nz/83/2169.html
Limited edition digital print on 310gsm Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Archival Paper ($230 +p&p)
Email kauri@thekauriproject.org to order – more details at right…
LAURENCE ABERHART
Interior #9, Matakohe, Kaipara Harbour, 6 December 2006
(NB: not available as an edition print)
“I saw a brief news item on TV about Miss Mavis Smith, aged 94 at the time. Watching it and seeing the interior of the house that Miss Smith was in, I commented that I would ‘just about kill to get inside such a place’. A couple of weeks later my wife, having a conversation with another lady sitting next to her at a lunch counter in Whangarei and learning that the lady came from Matakohe, passed on my comment. That lady said that she was a friend of Miss Smith’s and would organise it. A month or so later my wife and I turned up and introduced ourselves, myself, the photographer and, on seeing Miss Smith’s garden, my wife as a gardener. Miss Smith responded by saying for me to do whatever I wanted and for my wife to follow her to the garden.”
‘Totara House’ was built in 1896 of solid kauri, named as such because it sits at the mouth of a small gully filled with never-milled totara. The Smiths were one of the largest local sawmillers – responsible for clearing the landscape of kauri and totara – and the house was built with kauri from their mill. Miss Smith, the last of her family, was born and lived all her life in this house. Still completely original, with only minor modernising of the kitchen, the interior was originally shellac varnished throughout. Totara House was bequeathed by Mavis Smith to The Kauri Museum, Matakohe, and can be visited by appointment.
Well established as one of New Zealand’s leading photographers, Laurence Aberhart began photographing in the late 1960s. Amongst contemporary photographers Aberhart stands out for his longstanding commitment to traditional photographic processes, shooting in black & white with an ancient Korona 8 x 10” view camera, and developing both the large format negatives and prints himself. His long exposures and centred compositions result in distinctive images, rich in texture and detail. He has described his role as a photographer as that of “being of one who was to notice change and record that which could be lost from collective memory.” Since 1983 Aberhart has lived and worked from Russell in the Bay of Islands, travelling regularly both within New Zealand and overseas to photograph.
NICOLE CHARLES
Learn to Swim, 2016
NZD$230
Limited edition digital print on 310gsm Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Archival Paper
Email kauri@thekauriproject.org to order
‘Nature does many things only once, only once did she make a Kauri forest, and this was one of the most sublime of all her noble works. By chance the Kauri forests were entrusted to our care, and we have destroyed them most completely, all but this last most pitiful remnant.’
Professor W.R. McGregor(Story of the Kauri, A.H. Reed.)
The Waipoua Kauri forest sanctuary in Northland is one of these ancient remnants. It evolved in isolation from the rest of the world in a land once dominated by birds, where kauri sheltered all. Yet centuries of reckless destruction involving burning, logging, spraying, conversion to pine plantations and farmland and the constant threat of introduced and invasive species has whittled the ngahere down to a mere fragment of its former self. As noble as it is, this taonga is no longer pristine, it is not untouched and is fast approaching a state of cosmic barrenness. Climatic change and the Kauri Dieback disease continue its decline and, in an environment of ever decreasing connectivity to other natural areas, how kauri ecology inter-act and ultimately fare is uncertain. It raises the question, will kauri adapt fast enough and should we be looking to kauri as both a cultural and ecological indicator of what is to come? What then is the reciprocal responsibility of humans towards kauri and the irreplaceable biodiversity they support? Are we even capable of managing such things? How we respond to these issues, how we perceive, engage and negotiate these shared spaces within such rapidly shifting environments will be important factors in providing for future generations. We have become divorced from nature, but is it not too late to cultivate an ecological identity that fosters a sustainable and holistic coexistence with nature? We are locked in an embrace and if we could only recognize that we are but one part within the whole, that nature is not our creation but its survival our concern, then the kauri and its forest culture might yet be restored.
Nicole Charles is a multi-media artist living at the edge of the Waipoua forest. In 2013 she completed a BFA (Hons) at Elam School of Fine Arts. Her practice explores the human condition in relation to the natural world, and seeks to highlight a spiritual and emotional entanglement that flows both ways.
STAR GOSSAGE
Kauri Kaitiaki, 2016
NZD$230
Limited edition digital print on 310gsm Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Archival Paper
Email kauri@thekauriproject.org to order
My painting has a simple message – to be connected to our whenua, to have your hands in the earth, to start things small so they may grow big. To be kaitiaki (guardians) on our own lands. Many trees have beautiful stories throughout New Zealand that connect with people. These trees become part of our history, part of our whanau – we return to these trees, we keep this connection for generations, the tree becomes part of ourselves. All blessings to the Kauri trees of Aotearoa.
Star Gossage (Ngati Wai and Ngati Ruanui) lives on ancestral land in Pakiri. She decided to become a painter at 17, and has exhibited regularly throughout New Zealand and overseas. “My paintings are always reflections of my emotions and feelings throughout my life. My Maori culture and the land that my whanau live on in Pakiri have been my constant inspiration. I admire our connections and the care we take to protect our whenua. My love of gardening and plants is my other greatest inspiration. Nature and emotion are universal, thus I hope my paintings can speak to all cultures, races and peoples, regardless, as we all have an understanding of loving a place and a tree.”
JO HARDY
Survivors, 2016
NZD$230
Limited edition digital print on 310gsm Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Archival Paper
Email kauri@thekauriproject.org to order
‘Survivors’ is but a remnant of the title of this mixed media work. The long version is something like ‘Decimated roadside survivors in living colour among the shrouded monochromatic ghosts of former multitudes”. It’s about loss. Once – maybe a mere 300 years ago – the land surrounding the high clay ridge road in inland rural Northland where I live was completely clothed in Kauri forest. The picture shows (in acrylic colour) its heirs, the few surviving Kauri rickers which, now the land has been cleared for grazing, still cling tenaciously to life on the thin, no-man’s land strips between the borders of Council road maintenance operations and farmers’ boundary fences. Looking east two kilometres from the top corner to the middle distance tree-line there are seven roadside rickers (two looking not too well) and, furthest away, one precious ancient giant Kauri hiding in a small secret, mercifully covenanted patch of bush. The trees depicted in black, white and pencilled shades of grey represent their felled ancestors, cloaked in the symbolic white shrouds of the bush cover which once protected them.
Jo Hardy (d. July 2016) was a magic realist painter. She produced metaphorical narrative images created from available realities, from imperatives dictated by process and from thin air. She worked slowly, on her knees on the studio floor, building up multiple dilute layers of acrylic washes until the pictures glow. She reveled in detail. She thought of the paintings as a kind of visual poetry. Schooled in Dunedin and Christchurch long ago Jo lived and worked on top of an isolated hill near Maungakaramea. Her paintings have been exhibited widely in Aotearoa since 1973.
KURA TE WARU-REWIRI
Me te kore whakaaro mo te hua – Consider the consequences
NZD$230
Limited edition digital print on 310gsm Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Archival Paper
Email kauri@thekauriproject.org to order
“About three years ago I was fortunate to be travelling with Manos Nathan from an Indigenous Artists hui, Kokiri Putahi at Kohewhata Marae, to Waipoua Forest. I was so in awe of the beauty of Tane Mahuta and being with Manos made it even more significant. I took some photos of the beautiful colours of the undergrowth of moss and the various ferns and vines using my mobile phone camera. The one that captured my attention was the white rata vine, the aka, akatea.”
As a creeping vine, white rata are reliant on bigger trees such as kauri to support their growth up into the light. In turn they, and a myriad other small plants, adorn the trunks and floor of the forest, creating an intricate and beautiful living texture. The delicate detail of the white rata vine reminds us of the complex world of interconnected species that are reliant on each other in the forest ecosystem – the biodiversity that will suffer if kauri are lost.
Kura Te Waru-Rewiri (Ngati Pakahi ki Whaingaroa, Ngati Kahu, Ngapuhi, Ngati Raukawa ki Kauwhata, Ngati Rangi) was born in Kaeo and educated at Northland College and Bay of Islands College, where her art teachers were Selwyn Wilson and Buck Nin, before studying at Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury. Currently senior tutor in the Maunga Kura Toi - Bachelor of Maori Art at Northtec Tai Tokerau Wananga, she has been at the forefront of many contemporary Maori art developments in Aotearoa and in the establishment of Maori art education at tertiary level. Her work is represented in numerous public and private collections both nationally and internationally.
About the Posters
The Kauri Project commissions works by New Zealand artists addressing kauri. The artworks are produced as limited edition digital prints on 310gsm Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Archival Paper. The educational posters are printed on recycled paper using vegetable-based inks.
The works are created as a limited edition archival quality digital art print for sale and exhibition. A framed exhibition set is maintained by The Kauri Project.
These works are also offset printed as free posters, bearing information about kauri dieback, the art and artists on the reverse. The posters are distributed free through our events and exhibitions and through schools and other public institutions.
The Poster Series fulfils multiple goals:
Promoting love and respect for kauri as an iconic species, and important part of our natural and cultural heritage.
Spreading awareness of kauri dieback disease and hygiene protocols to prevent spreading the disease, and keeping the issue in peoples’ consciousness.
Building recognition of art as an important method of engagement and communication.
Providing access to high quality art for education providers, community organisations and individuals.
Promoting New Zealand art and artists widely to new audiences, and supporting New Zealand artists by paying them for their work.
All artworks are for sale
Contact The Kauri Project for sales
Email: kauri@thekauriproject.org
All edition works are $230 including GST. Packaging and post costs will be added for delivery purposes.
All artworks are printed on limited edition digital prints on 310gsm Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Archival Paper.
Series I is in a numbered, dated and signed edition of 50
Series II & III are in a numbered, dated and signed edition of 30 *
NB * Jo Hardy’s edition is signed in plate
Arrangements can be made for pick up in Auckland.
Cost of framing is estimated at $200. Framing includes conservation glass for better protection. The Kauri Project can arrange this, however, if the artwork is to be delivered, additional costs will be advised.
We will respond with details for payment.
THE KAURI PROJECT:
Art Poster Series 1
Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery
Venue: Lopdell Offsite New Lynn 2014Arataki Visitor Centre, 2014
RAMP Gallery Hamilton, 2014
Bartley & Company Art Gallery, Wellington, 2014
Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, 2015
Six Silos Auckland 2015 – Matariki Exhibition
Nathan Homestead, Manurewa, 2015
Katikati Mural & Arts Festival, 2015
Auckland Botanic Gardens
30 June - 4 August 2018
THE KAURI PROJECT:
Art Poster Series II
Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland
2016Russell Museum 2017
Whangarei Art Museum 2017
Waikato Museum 2017-2018
Arataki Visitor Centre 2018
Nathan Homestead
30 June- 4 August 2018
THE KAURI PROJECT:
Art Poster Series III
Waikato Museum, Hamilton
December 2017 – February 2018Arataki Visitor Centre
April-June 2018Nathan Homestead
30 June - 4 August 2018