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Wednesday November 28, 2012
one on one with the Sun
The Sun
Antarctic art with an edge Blenheim watercolour artist Shirley O’Connor’s life is forever linked to the Antarctic because of tragic events there 33 years ago. Now she has produced an exhibition of watercolours based on the frozen continent which opens on Saturday. She chats with Chris Tobin. Shirley O’Connor had to grapple with tears and emotions as she produced her latest exhibition of paintings which is about to open at the Marlborough Art Society Gallery in Blenheim’s High Street. Today, exactly 33 years to the day on November 28, 1979, Air New Zealand Flight TE901 collided with Mt Erebus on Ross Island during a scenic flight. A total of 237 passengers and 20 crew lost their lives in what remains New Zealand’s single biggest tragedy. Among the deceased were Shirley’s husband Ian O’Connor, 41, and her older brother Ronnie Brehaut, 40. In February last year, Shirley and her daughter Raylene O’Connor joined other families who had lost loved ones in the disaster, for a special remembrance flight to Antarctica. Shirley said her other children Jacqueline and Lance were disappointed they could not have gone as well, but seats were restricted and a ballot system was applied. “I represented my brother and she (Raylene) represented her father who she’d worked with on a milk run,” said Shirley. Ian O’Connor was operating a milk run in Timaru at the time he died. He had gone to Antarctica to accompany Ronnie who was intellectually disabled and extremely keen to make the flight “No-one on the trip had met before and it was interesting as people talked of why their loved ones went down there,” she said. “My memories (of the disaster) are still very clear. “It was quite emotional to get there. “When we landed it was just a big flat sheet of ice.” After landing, Shirley and the others were
taken to the Erebus memorial site. “It’s hard to explain, it’s just quietness, there was no wind; there’s nothing there. “We just gathered round and the memorial service only took 10 minutes.” Forecasts of approaching bad weather meant they could not stay long before making the return flight to New Zealand. “It’s past now,” Shirley said of the controversy that blew up after the Erebus disaster. “We heard all sorts of things going on of what shouldn’t have happened. “The route was changed but someone got the degrees wrong; we don’t know who that person was. “Air New Zealand has done everything possible to smooth things over. “I got on with my life.” Developing her love of art was how Shirley
got on with her life. She had left high school after two years and following the Erebus disaster she returned to complete School Certificate and University Entrance. “I threw myself into art.” She was largely self-taught although when the occasion arose, she attended art classes. “Art has always been something I’ve done, trying to capture something you’ve seen.” Three years after Erebus she went to live in Tekapo where she ran her own gallery and painted extensively. She moved to Blenheim six years ago and earlier this year won the Peters Doig Marlborough Art Award for an etching. Out of the Erebus commemoration flight has flowed the works she has produced for the exhibition based on photographs she took on the trip.
There are 17 watercolours of Mt Erebus, the Ross Sea, Scott base, ice floes and penguins. The paintings took her a year to complete and one suspects have brought her some peace. She said she hated the expression “finding closure”. “I feel a sense of achievement, something from my inner self, and once I started it came naturally. I had a few tears. “It’s something that will never go away.”
Exhibition preview
A preview of Shirley O’Connor’s exhibiton will be held at 6pm on Friday at the Marlborough Art Society Gallery. The exhibition of Antarctic paintings opens on Saturday, December 1 and will run until December 16.
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