SOUTHERN GOTHIC 2018 by Milford Galleries

C I H T O G N R E H T U O S Octavia Cook Mike Crawford Neil Dawson Jane Dodd Bill Hammond Jeffrey Harris Michael Hight Ralph Hotere Yuki Kihara Lisa Reihana Simon Richardson Ann Shelton Heather Straka Terr y Stringer Grahame Sydney

8 SE PT EM BE R - 3 OC TO BE R 2018

Southern Gothic The Gothic of Aotearoa New Zealand does not feature ruined castles where ghostly spectres roam the corridors, nor vampiric noblemen who prey upon hapless maidens by moonlight. It is not the Gothic of the American South, set in a pestilent, suffocating Eden and peopled by the ghosts of slavery and brutality. In New Zealand we find the Gothic in landscapes suffused with dark and perilous beauty; we meet individuals whose suburban masks threaten to slip and reveal a haunted interior; we see how uneasy histories tear through the fabric of the present and fracture our fragile social boundaries. Our Gothic tradition hints at inner demons and buried anxieties that are sensed obliquely rather than seen in plain sight. (1) The role of the Gothic is multiple: it can be used to scrutinise dominant socio-political narratives and it requires the viewer to look at how the past formed - and continues to inhabit - the present. For some, the Gothic is the evocation of a psychological atmosphere, an experience of the Romantic sublime where beauty and terror are two sides of the same coin. Others see Gothic elements as a way of expressing the ongoing tension involved in establishing a cultural identity in an environment that remains resolutely Other.

Mike Crawford, Kereru (Black) (2018)

Southern Gothic considers how Octavia Cook, Snake Woolfing Bat (2018) each selected artist uses subtle markers to express the unspoken atmosphere of the uncanny. The Gothic potential of portraiture and landscape painting, photography and sculpture can be glimpsed in the ways they disrupt our familiar, expected responses to each genre with tones of foreboding, unease, mythic import. (2) 2

The Lay of the Land The solitude was greater than I could bear; the mountain upon my master’s sheep-run was a crowded thoroughfare in comparison with this sombre sullen place. The air, moreover, was dark and heavy, which made the loneliness even more oppressive. There was an inky gloom over all that was not covered with snow and ice. (3) Arriving from Scotland, the first colonising settlers to Otago found themselves in “the town of Dunedin, its surface an entanglement of scrub and flax, without a roof to cover or protect them [and with] the dread uncertainty as to how or where provisions could be obtained.” (4) In comparison to te ao Māori, where the whenua was accepted as a living entity and everyday life was replete with ancestral shades, Aotearoa was not those “green and pleasant fields” Pākehā settlers were used to, but rather an alien environment that resisted taming and refused to keep buried stories of those from whom the land was taken. (5) Rather than entrapment in castle dungeons or haunted houses, it is the very expanse of the landscape that oppresses its inhabitants with unknowable, potent power. In many of Grahame Sydney’s paintings, elements of human habitation sit in a starkly beautiful, but unforgiving, environment. They capture a brooding sense of disquiet, the scale of the landscape becomes overwhelming.

Grahame Sydney, Storm, Mount Ida (2018) 3

Storm, Mt Ida (2018) features a rich, dark palette, depicting the Maniototo in an eery half-light. There is an atmosphere of anticipatory tension pervading the work, the land is poised for what comes next. Dense stormclouds sink to meet shadowed paddocks and treelines; Sydney creates a tightly controlled perspective which shows daylight shining beyond the weatherfront but which firmly positions this out of reach of the viewer. The strong horizontal composition diminishes even the mountains, emphasising further the insignificance of any human element. Behind the scenic tourist destination, the potential for tragic, violent death haunts Vault, Lovers’ Leap, Otago Peninsula (2003). Ann Shelton’s photographs disrupt our perspective and dis-place us, unearthing irrational narratives hidden in the familiar and and the mirror image hints at unnerving grotesqueries embodied in the land. The images Shelton uses in both of her works in Southern Gothic are already shot through with peril and their doubling and manipulation intensifies their embedded mytho-histories. Creatures of myth and superstition, Bill Hammond’s bird figures play the role of irrational spectres that infiltrate our reasoned, modern existence. They are fantastical inhabitants of a world that exists only in the past, if at all. Pack of Five 6 (1999) shows them floating in a non-world; their presence is unexplained and they have the potential to be “victims and villains rolled into one”. (6) We see echoes of them in Mike Crawford’s black glass vessels, which refuse a realist interpretation: huia emerge after a hundred year absence and a kereru is adorned in mourning garb. Neil Dawson and Ralph Hotere explore how the desolate and disturbing histories of our land are likewise embedded in our social fabric. Port Chalmers Chair (1997) shows the transformation of a simple domestic item into a malevolent object; it exemplifies the unheimlich,

Ann Shelton, Vault, Lovers Leap, Otago Peninsula (2003)

the notion that hearth and home (and by extension, suburb and town) have been perverted by something fearsome and malignant. We are reminded of the thinness of society’s veneer. In Dawson’s works we see the neo-Gothicism of church spires and parapets of our built environments, which historian Erik Olssen suggests are suffused with an “arrogance and pride implicit in the act of occupation” (7) and correspondingly whisper subjugated narratives of violence and repression. Dawson disrupts the stories that cling to these architectural forms, turning them upside down. No longer piercing the heavens to the glory of a Christian God, the steeples are removed from their religious setting and brought down to earth where we become much more aware of the tension inherent in their sharply edged forms and precarious balance. The ebony and bone works of Jane Dodd also evoke an environment in possession of an eery sentience; like Gothic talismans they tell stories of disquiet in object form. At the same time however, their delicate materiality and intimate scale undermine Gothic tropes of threat and tension; they perform as reminders of those things hidden rather than their manifestation. Lisa Reihana’s works subvert the Eurocentric notion of the Gothic. Her representation of a physical and spiritual landscape that is distinctly Māori reinforces the intimacy of the relationship between land and tangata whenua: Māori are of the land and the land is of them. She deliberately blurs the line between body/spirit/land in her twilit lightbox stills and the goddess Hinenui-te-pō and the dying warrior are enmeshed in a tangled profusion of damp

Neil Dawson, Spirit (2014)

undergrowth and twisted tree limbs. Where tauiwi might sense death’s proximity as a sinister presence however, the dense textures and muted light in Reihana’s images establish an enfolding closeness where ancestral spirits provide support and guidance to the living.

Lisa Reihana, At the Gate (2018)

The Spectre Within On Calvary Street are trellises Where bright as blood the roses bloom, And gnomes like pagan fetishes Hang their hats on an empty tomb Where two old souls go slowly mad, National Mum and Labour Dad. - James K Baxter “Ballad of Calvary Street” Antipodean Gothic is rich with allusions to the monsters of our own making. Anxieties and turmoil simmer in our minds, fed by “exclusions and uneasinesses that fracture our cultural identity” and which therefore, are revealed in our cultural production. (8) The tyranny of social convention, psychological isolation, familial dysfunction, and the concomitant allure and fear of transgression all conspire to haunt the (predominantly Pākehā) psyche. Like the air before a storm, Simon Richardson’s portraits are fraught with tension. His meticulous control and attention to detail only serves to emphasise a brittle calm. In Concrete Mixer (2018) we see hints of the isolated, damaged loners of Frank Sargeson’s writing, bound by puritan 6

social codes and trapped by their inability to express themselves. The dense blue-green of the macrocarpa hems in Richardson’s labourer, creating a suffocating sense of enclosure. The figure too seems tightly wound, closed off - a New Zealand “man alone”. Bill Pearson described such men as wrapped (trapped?) in protective social camouflage to ensure “the denial of real sensibilities and emotions for the sake of the almighty norm”. (9) There is a quality of troubled absence in Heather Straka’s The Turn 8 (2017). A stripped back palette and indistinct background suggest that this woman is losing her place and her self: she is literally being disHeather Straka, Turn 8 (2017) embodied before our eyes. The entrapped female as well as the ghostly shade are classic Gothic tropes, both of which act as symbols of the powerless and silenced female voice. The uncanny nature of Straka’s painting arises from our familiarity with the female as portrait subject and with our realisation of her lack of agency. If Richardson’s paintings show the claustrophobic mask covering a haunted interior life, Jeffrey Harris’ portrait casts that mask aside and he makes visible the private fears that threaten to erupt into our public lives. Head with Three Eyes (200218) is at once incredibly alluring and viscerally unnerving. Charged with psychosexual and religious undertones, Harris paints the psychical made flesh and does so in jewel-like tones. The works dare us

Jeffrey Harris, Head with Three Eyes (2002-18)

to recognise the dark secrets and monstrous passions (10) we hold in the tightly trammelled confines of our own psychological landscapes. In Terry Stringer’s Temple of Poetry (2010) we can see references to the faux ruins of temples and monuments placed in the grounds of grand estates to remind the aristocracy of the inevitability of death and decay. In Stringer’s temple we see figures and motifs slipping between one another in real time, and realise that nothing is certain other than time’s passing. Like other forms of art, poetry allowed humankind to escape the confines of the rational mind and the awareness of our mortality. The evocation of emotion through art carried with it the possibility of approaching the Sublime, an exquisite moment of terror and beauty that transcended the here-and-now. This unfettering of emotions also had the capacity to overwhelm however, leaving us filled with tension and undefined dread.

Terry Stringer, Temple of Poetry (2010)

The slippage between fear and desire is evident in in Octavia Cook and Yuki Kihara’s works. Both thrum with deceptive, venomous beauty and identities of prey and predator shift back and forth. Overtly conflating sexual desire and memento mori, Yuki Kihara uses the sensual movements of the taualuga to somatically embody her own version of the death’s head in 8

her video work Invocation (2016). Cook considers the dualities of seeming/ being; her Vipillar (2017) is a literal emblem of the great imposter, the sphinx moth caterpillar, who can imitate a viper when threatened. (11) The juxtaposition of the rational and the irrational is a powerful tool and we have no choice but to examine the relationships between what is ‘real’ and what is not. Michael Hight’s ‘Nocturne’ paintings do just this: like the mirror in Alice Through The Looking Glass, they reflect not just what is visible, but what is not. Haast River (2018) presents landscape fragments and disparate objects in a stark, vitrine-like setting. With all context removed, we are left searching for connections that are just out of reach. Hight proffers a collection of disrupted memories which seep into our present existence like half-remembered dreams, bringing with them a sense of foreboding about the dark stories they might reveal. - Lisa Wilkie, 2018

Michael Hight, Haast River (2018) 9

References 1. Ian Conrich, “New Zealand Gothic”, in A New Companion to the Gothic, ed. David Punter, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2012, p 393-408. 2. Timothy Jones, “The Gothic as a Practice: Gothic Studies, Genre and the Twentieth Century Gothic”, PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2010. 3. Samuel Butler, Erewhon, Truebner and Ballantyne, UK, 1872). http://www.gutenberg. org/files/1906/1906-h/1906-h.htm 4. Julius Vogel, ed. The Official Handbook of New Zealand : a collection of papers by experienced colonists on the colony as a whole and on the several provinces, Wyman & Sons, London, 1875, p92. https://archive.org/details/officialhandbook00newz 5. Erin Mercer, “Manuka bushes covered with thick spider webs: Katherine Mansfield and the Colonial Gothic Tradition”, Journal of New Zealand Literature 32, part 2, 2014, p 85105. 6. Robert Leonard, “Hello Darkness: New Zealand Gothic”, Art and Australia, Spring 2008. 7. Erik Olssen, A History of Otago, John McIndoe, Dunedin, 1984. 8. Timothy Jones, “The Gothic as a Practice: Gothic Studies, Genre and the Twentieth Century Gothic”, PhD thesis, Victoria University Wellington, 2010, p 11. 9. Bill Pearson, “Fretful Sleepers: A Sketch of New Zealand Behaviour and its Implications for the Artist”, Landfall, September 1952. 10. Timothy Jones, Op.cit, p 17. 11. Octavia Cook, Artist Statement, 2018.

Grahame Sydney Storm, Mount Ida (2018) oil on linen frame: 631 x 859 x 50 mm

Grahame Sydney Clouded Moon (2018) oil on linen frame: 632 x 860 x 50 mm

Grahame Sydney Irishman Creek (2018) oil on linen frame: 786 x 1248 x 50 mm Collection of Nicholas Sydney

Grahame Sydney Saviour (2018) oil on linen frame: 942 x 639 x 52 mm Private Collection, Central Otago

Jeffrey Harris Head with Candle (2002-18) oil on board frame: 528 x 579 x 46 mm, panel: 231 x 299 x 5 mm

Jeffrey Harris Head with Three Eyes (2002-18) oil on board frame: 528 x 579 x 46 mm, panel: 236 x 298 x 5 mm

Neil Dawson Spirit (2014) black flocking on MDF size on wall: 695 x 2050 x 695 mm

Neil Dawson Phoenix (2014-18) automotive paint on zinc plated steel, stainless steel swivel mount, black granite scupture: 2066 x 314 x 314 mm, base: 180 x 600 x 600 mm

Ralph Hotere Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro (1992) black acrylic & gold leaf on glass frame: 983 x 461 x 45 mm

Ralph Hotere Winter Solstice (1988) stained glass in wooden window frame frame: 1175 x 985 x 42 mm

Ralph Hotere Port Chalmers Chair (1997) oil on kindergarten chair with boat nails size: 684 x 315 x 351 mm Collection of Harriet Brinsley

Mike Crawford KererĹŤ (2018) cast glass size: 454 x 162 x 151 mm

Mike Crawford Kumete Manu (Black) (2018) cast glass size: 454 x 162 x 151 mm

Mike Crawford Huia Pair (Black) (2018) cast glass beak up: 275 x 285 x 122 mm, beak down: 213 x 353 x 122 mm

W D Hammond Pack of Five 6 (1999) acrylic on plywood frame: 882 x 724 x 30 mm

W D Hammond CV Service (1991) acrylic on kauri panel: 705 x 1060 x 45 mm Private Collection, Central Otago

W D Hammond Shelf Life, Collection Plate, Snuff Jars (1995) mixed media panel: 450 x 884 x 72 mm Private Collection, Dunedin

Michael Hight Haast River (2018) oil on linen stretcher: 1222 x 1222 x 35 mm

Michael Hight Wairau Bar (2018) oil on linen stretcher: 658 x 836 x 36 mm

Lisa Reihana At the Gate (2018) archival pigment print on backlit film, LED lightbox, ed of 5 + 2 ap size: 840 x 1500 x 100 mm

Lisa Reihana Arrival (2018) archival pigment print on backlit film, LED lightbox, ed of 5 + 2 ap size: 840 x 1500 x 100 mm

Lisa Reihana Passing (2018) archival pigment print on backlit film, LED lightbox, ed of 5 + 2 ap size: 840 x 1500 x 100 mm

Heather Straka The Turn 8 (2017) oil on board frame: 604 x 502 x 45 mm, stretcher: 452 x 350 x 24 mm

Heather Straka By Appointment (2001) oil on canvas board panel: 903 x 700 x 55 mm Private Collection, Dunedin

Terry Stringer Temple of Poetry (2010) cast bronze size: 2270 x 1350 x 750 mm

Yuki Kihara Invocation (2016) single channel digital video, silent, 7 min 25 sec edition of 7 + 2 ap

Ann Shelton Chemistry, White Island, Former Sulphur Mine, New Zealand (2008) diptych; c-print, edition of 5 size overall: 934 x 1502 x 33 mm, frames: 934 x 751 x 33 mm each

Ann Shelton Vault, Lovers Leap, Otago Peninsula (2003) diptych; c-print, edition of 10 size overall: 1500 x 932 x 33 mm, frames: 750 x 932 mm

Simon Richardson Eben Afloat (2018) egg tempera on board panel: 682 x 682 x 22 mm

Simon Richardson Burn Off (2018) egg tempera on board panel: 752 x 742 x 23 mm

Simon Richardson Concrete Mixer (2018) egg tempera on board panel: 679 x 840 x 27 mm

Simon Richardson Mila (2015/16) oil on board frame: 364 x 446 x 27 mm, panel: 321 x 402 mm

Jane Dodd Old Spot (2018) necklace; dyed cowbone, sterling silver size: 95 x 66 x 26 mm

Jane Dodd Little Blue (2018) necklace; dyed cowbone, sterling silver size: 102 x 46 x 21 mm

Jane Dodd The Kilmog (2018) brooch; ebony, sterling silver, sapphires, stainless steel wire size: 38 x 67 x 17 mm

Jane Dodd Swampy (2018) brooch; mother of pearl, freshwater pearls, sterling silver, stainless steel wire, size: 41 x 68 x 13 mm

Jane Dodd Cull (2015) brooch; cowbone, sterling silver, stainless steel wire size: 53 x 52 x 15 mm

Jane Dodd Kapukataumahaka (2018) brooch; cowbone, sterling silver, stainless steel wire size: 35 x 62 x 7 mm

Octavia Cook Vipillar (2017) acrylic, kauri wood, silver size: 114 x 43 x 16 mm

Octavia Cook Snake Wolfing Bat (2016) acrylic, kauri wood, silver, 18 carat gold eye size: 74 x 66 x 13 mm

Octavia Cook Solo (2018) acrylic, silver size: 82 x 91 x 7 mm

Octavia Cook Double Fake (2018) acrylic, silver size: 71 x 81 x 8 mm

Octavia Cook Stolen Jewels (2018) brooch; acrylic, silver size: 70 x 111 x 8 mm

Artist Biographies Octavia Cook Jeweller Octavia Cook has regularly exhibited in group and solo shows in New Zealand and internationally. She is intrigued by how objects have the potential to elicit “such a strong desire to possess that you could commit crime or potentially hurt someone else in order to fulfill your need”. Mike Crawford Mike Crawford’s cast glass works are an expression of the material possibilities of glass. With his formal training in sculpture, Crawford worked with master glass caster Ann Robinson for a number of years and his works are held in the public collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Dowse Art Museum and the Waikato Museum. Neil Dawson Working for the last 40 years as one of New Zealand’s foremost creators of public sculpture, Neil Dawson’s laser-cut steel sculptures appear to defy gravity and the weightiness of the medium. He was awarded an Arts Laureate by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand in 2003 and in the following year was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Neil Dawson’s public works can be seen in places as varied as Shanghai, Canberra, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Manchester. Jane Dodd Jane Dodd uses her practice to explore the everyday experiences that connect people, including myths and stories, histories and the land. Since the early 1990s Dodd has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in New Zealand and Australia, and she is recognised by collectors, galleries and institutions as a significant artist in this field. W D Hammond W D (Bill) Hammond is one of New Zealand’s most influential living artists and has created a body of work of profound importance. Born in 1947, Hammond attended the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts and remains based in Lyttleton. His work tackles social and environmental issues, conveying messages about humanity and its status as an endangered species. Jeffrey Harris Jeffrey Harris is a self-taught artist who has drawn extensively from modern art history and the influence of his peers. Harris was the Frances Hodgkins Fellow in 1977 and has been the recipient of numerous major awards, including the Paramount Wallace Award in 2003. He is represented in public gallery collections throughout New Zealand and Australia.

Michael Hight Most well-known for his beehive paintings, over the last few years Michael Hight has been developing what he calls his ‘night’ works. A solid black background in each painting provides no context for the subjects and the relationships between each is ‘hidden in plain sight’, leaving the viewer to construct a narrative for each work. Hight gained a Bachelor of Social Sciences from University of Waikato in 1982, following which he travelled, lived and painted in London for three years. He has regularly exhibited since 1984 and has been a full time artist since 2001. Ralph Hotere Hone Papita Raukura (Ralph) Hotere (1931-2013) is recognised as one of New Zealand’s greatest artists. One of eleven children, Hotere was born in Mitimiti, Northland and moved to Dunedin in 1952 to specialise in art. In 1961 Ralph was awarded a New Zealand Art Societies Fellowship to study in London at the Central School of Art and in 1969 moved to the Dunedin area to take up the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at the University of Otago. He was based in Otago until his death in 2013. Yuki Kihara Working across a range of media including photography, performance and video, Yuki Kihara is firmly positioned as one of New Zealand, and the Pacific’s, most interesting and innovative artists. She regularly exhibits, performs and lectures at institutions in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Her works can be found in numerous national and international collections. Lisa Reihana Lisa Reihana is of Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine and Ngāi Tu descent tribally connected to the Far North of New Zealand through her father Huri Waka Reihana. Reihana has an extensive exhibition history and in 2017 she was this country’s representative at the Venice Biennale. Her works are held in private and public collections including Te Papa Tongarewa, the Auckland Art Gallery, the Australia National Gallery, and the Brooklyn Museum, New York. Simon Richardson Born in 1974, Simon Richardson grew up in Central Otago. He graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Otago Polytechnic School of Art and has worked as a full-time artist since then. Ricahrdson has been awarded the Canadian Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant three times – and was the winner of the Mainland Award in 2003. In 2016 one of his works was selected for the prestigious BP Portrait Award exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Ann Shelton Ann Shelton’s internationally recognised large scale, hyper-real photographic works operate at the nexus of conceptual and documentary modes, investigating the social, political and historical contexts that inform readings of the landscape and its contents. Shelton is an Associate Professor of Photography at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University in Wellington, and exhibits both nationally and internationally. Heather Straka Initially trained in sculpture at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts, Straka made the shift to painting while working as artist Julia Morison’s assistant in France. Her first painting exhibition took place in 1998 and she graduted with an MFA from the Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 2000. Straka was awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship in 2008, and the William Hodges Fellowship in 2011. Her exhibition history spans two decades and her work is held in all of New Zealand’s major public collections. Terry Stringer Terry Stringer is widely recognised as one of New Zealand’s leading sculptors. The softness of the wax patina finish, the play of perspective and contrast between two and three dimensions are fundamental to his practice. Stringer is represented in all major public and many private New Zealand collections and in the 2013 Stringer was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to sculpture. Grahame Sydney Originally from Dunedin and best known for his landscapes of Central Otago, Grahame Sydney is one of New Zealand’s senior artists. His practice spans more than four decades and encompasses oils, egg tempera, watercolours, lithographs, etching and photography. In 2004, Sydney was awarded the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to painting and his works are held in the collections of all major New Zealand galleries and museums.

Front cover image: Neil Dawson, Spirit (2014) Detail Back cover image: Ralph Hotere, Port Chalmers Chair (1997) Detail Southern Gothic 8 September - 3 October 2018 Milford Galleries Dunedin 18 Dowling Street, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand Essay © 2018 Lisa Wilkie Catalogue © 2018 Milford House Ltd