This landscape recalls a view from Brent Harris’s childhood in Te Papaioea / Palmerston North. He recounts a story of climbing on the roof of the family home as a child after a fall of snow and seeing Mounts Taranaki and Ruapehu shimmering in the distance. The palette and composition is borrowed from Giotto’s Dream of Joachim from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy; the idea of a revelation in the Aotearoa landscape from Colin McCahon’s early religious paintings. In Harris’s image, an apparition is forming in the sky, but the two onlookers can’t quite take it in, can’t quite make sense of what they’re seeing. The painting speaks of the importance of curiosity and wonder as a means of making sense of the world – but also points to the impossibility of ever being able to apprehend the full picture. (Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania, 2021)

A small number of international printmakers of standing made it to Aotearoa’s shores, among them Mabel Annesley who arrived here in 1941 and settled in Whakatū Nelson. Her large house back in Northern Ireland had recently been commandeered by the British Army, which led to her decision to move halfway around the world. Mabel was part of the British wood-engraving revival during the 1920s and 1930s, working alongside other significant artists including Clare Leighton, Paul Nash, Gwen Raverat and Eric Gill. Although the wood-engraving blocks and other printmaking materials she was accustomed to using were scarce in Aotearoa, she made do with lino-blocks and began making stunning prints of the surrounding landscapes. Her work was admired by many, and several prints were reproduced in the journal Art in New Zealand, which also published her article ‘A Wood-engraver Looks Back’ in 1943.

Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023