Denise Copland
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1952
Indigenous III
- 1991
- Etching, aquatint
- Purchased, 1993
- 800 x 603mm
- 93/36:8-24
Location: Sir Robertson and Lady Stewart Gallery
Tags: monochrome, trees
Denise Copland’s works have often considered how human intervention has transformed the Aotearoa New Zealand kahere. Here, we gaze up at a wild rākau from far beneath on the forest floor. Inspired by her experience of remnant forests on Rakiura Stewart Island and at Trotter’s Gorge and Herbert Forest in Ōtākou Otago, Copland created the Indigenous suite in the kahere, using an etching needle to draw the vegetation that surrounded her and sometimes working directly onto the plate with pieces of bark. Combining established printmaking with these more experimental processes, she brings the feeling of being under the canopy in an ancient forest vividly and authentically to life.
kahere ~ forest
rākau ~ tree
(He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil, 2025)
Exhibition History
Through her art, Denise Copland has for many years expressed her concern at the destruction of the indigenous forests of New Zealand. The human impact on the natural environment is the overall theme of her ‘Implantations’ installation of 23 prints, of which this suite of five is a part. The first suite in the installation, these prints gradually move from dark to light. This refers to the gradual clearance of the native forest. Produced on a large scale, the dramatic viewpoint of the prints, looking up the trunk of the trees towards the canopy, intensifies the scale. Copland took the plates for these prints into the bush and worked on them, often using bark as well as an etching needle. Copland is one of New Zealand’s leading printmakers. She was born in Timaru and studied at the Christchurch Polytechnic and the School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury. She has gone on to tutor at both those institutions. Copland has exhibited widely in New Zealand and participates regularly in international print exhibitions.
Related
Notes
If a tree falls in a forest
but a conservation minister doesn't hear it fall, does it make a dollar?
Notes
Going Bush
As we're constantly reminded by a somewhat strident billboard campaign, the Christchurch We Love Is Still Here.