B.

This exhibition considers a well-loved series of works and examines how a place can become an artist’s central subject. The commitment Sutton showed Te Tihi o Kahukura, also known as Castle Rock, a prominent outcrop of rock on the hills above the Christchurch suburb of Ferrymead, might be compared to Cézanne’s long-term observation of Mont Sainte-Victoire. We see these places through the eyes of artists who have sat observing a mountain and returned to it again and again in memory.

Te Tihi o Kahukura translates as the citadel of Kahukura. Kahukura is the atua (god) whose role in the Kāi Tahu creation story is the adorner of the land, cloaking it in forests filled with birds and other wildlife. Sutton’s vision represents one way of knowing the land; the oral histories handed down by whakapapa (ancestral lineage) constitute another way of knowing