John Pule - On another man's land
John Pule - On another man's land
A passage selected by John Pule from his 2006 essay Clouds and Water is read by Asovale Luma.
Related reading: Ka Honoka
Collection
John Pule On Another Man’s Land
Taking visual direction from nineteenth-century Niuean painted hiapo (tapa cloth), John Pule's 'On Another Man’s Land' lays out composite pattern and motif into complex, segmented storylines. Cryptic symbols feature alongside more recognisable imagery such as numbers, creatures and various goods, both customary and introduced. Also pictured are an explorer’s sextant, a missionary and figures embracing, gathered, or in despair.
That this is storytelling from a Polynesian viewpoint is reinforced by Pule’s incorporation of a sketch by the Raiatean priest and navigator Tupaia, made while on board Captain Cook’s Endeavour in the Pacific in 1770. Depicting a Māori chief of Uawa (Tolaga Bay) trading with the naturalist Joseph Banks, it foretells future, often ruinous, moments of exchange.
The painting’s title refers to the Niue-born Pule's own experience of being raised in Auckland, while conceivably raising broader questions. Pule has recently returned to live in Niue. (Kā Honoka, 18 December 2015 – 28 August 2016)
Exhibition
Kā Honoka
Cross-cultural encounter in the Pacific shows whaling as central to the local story.
Article
A Tale of Two Chiefs
If you have recently visited He Taonga Rangatira: Noble Treasures at the Gallery you will have been struck by Fiona Pardington's two large photographic portraits of lifelike busts of Ngāi tahu tipuna (ancestors).
Collection
Charles Meryon Le Ministère de la Marine
Charles Meryon’s fantastical Parisian scene presents the French Admiralty building with a flying horde being delivered from the far ends of the globe. The crowd below is thrown into disarray as Roman charioteers, whales and whaleboats, a waka with sails, an anchor, serpents, cowboys and horses with fishtails prepare for landing.
Meryon’s impaired mental state in this period is the usual explanation given for this extraordinary etching. At the same time, it may be viewed as an image laden with personal symbolism as the confounding facts, fantasies and errors of the past make their perplexing return.
Meryon spent three years in Akaroa from 1843–46 as a young naval cadet, protecting the fledgling French settlement. Although this particular colonising plan did not succeed, the streetlamps of Paris were fed a regular supply of whale oil from Banks Peninsula in this period. For Meryon these were formative years and regularly revisited in his imagination. (Kā Honoka, 18 December 2015 – 28 August 2016)
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Charles Meryon Nouvelle Zélande, Greniers indigènes et Habitations à Akaroa (Presqu’île de Banks, 1845
Described as the father of modern etching, French naval officer Charles Meryon was one of the most important artists to work in Waitaha / Canterbury during the colonial era. He served on the Rhin, stationed at Akaroa between 1843 and 1846, to look out for the French settlement there. Meryon made numerous pencil studies at Akaroa which he later used as the basis for this series of etchings completed back in Paris during the 1860s. He planned to publish these and other images of the Pacific in an album, which unfortunately he never completed. The story of the French attempt to settle Te Waipounamu / the South Island is a fascinating chapter in New Zealand’s history. A French whaling captain, Jean Langlois, purchased 30,000 acres from Kāi Tahu on Horomaka / Banks Peninsula in 1838 and returned to France to get government support to establish a French colony at Akaroa. It was from here that he hoped the French would be able to expand throughout the rest of the South Island. A company was formed and sixty- three French and German settlers set sail on the Comte de Paris. They arrived at Akaroa in August 1840 only to find a Union Jack flying at Takapūneke / Green’s Point signalling that British sovereignty had already been claimed. Today, Akaroa continues to retain something of a French flavour.
(Pickaxes and shovels, 17 February – 5 August 2018)
Collection
Conrad Martens Sydney from the North Shore
In the 1840s Sydney was a vital centre for Pacific shipping and trade, including New Zealand-based whaling ventures, many Sydney-owned and with Māori in their international crews. Ships delivering oil and whalebone to Sydney were restocked there with fresh crew and supplies.
Conrad Martens left England in 1832 to travel the world. The following year he became artist on board the HMS Beagle with Captain Robert FitzRoy and Charles Darwin, joining the ship from Montevideo, Uruguay. He left the Beagle at Valparaíso, Chile in November 1834, and travelled to Sydney via Tahiti and the Bay of Islands, arriving in 1835.
Sydney became Martens’ permanent home. He started there profitably as a landscape painter and responded to an economic depression in the early 1840s by producing an edition of fine lithographs of Sydney from the North Shore. These were printed in London and hand-coloured by the artist in Sydney. (Kā Honoka, 18 December 2015 – 28 August 2016)
Collection
Charles Meryon Nouvelle Zélande, Presqu’île de Banks, 1845. Pointe dite des Charbonniers, à Akaroa, Pêche à la Seine
Described as the father of modern etching, French naval officer Charles Meryon was one of the most important artists to work in Waitaha / Canterbury during the colonial era. He served on the Rhin, stationed at Akaroa between 1843 and 1846, to look out for the French settlement there. Meryon made numerous pencil studies at Akaroa which he later used as the basis for this series of etchings completed back in Paris during the 1860s. He planned to publish these and other images of the Pacific in an album, which unfortunately he never completed. The story of the French attempt to settle Te Waipounamu / the South Island is a fascinating chapter in New Zealand’s history. A French whaling captain, Jean Langlois, purchased 30,000 acres from Kāi Tahu on Horomaka / Banks Peninsula in 1838 and returned to France to get government support to establish a French colony at Akaroa. It was from here that he hoped the French would be able to expand throughout the rest of the South Island. A company was formed and sixty- three French and German settlers set sail on the Comte de Paris. They arrived at Akaroa in August 1840 only to find a Union Jack flying at Takapūneke / Green’s Point signalling that British sovereignty had already been claimed. Today, Akaroa continues to retain something of a French flavour.
(Pickaxes and shovels, 17 February – 5 August 2018)
Collection
Charles Meryon Nouvelle-Zélande, Presqu’île de Banks. Etat de la petite colonie Française d’Akaroa. Vers 1845 - Voyage du Rhin.
Described as the father of modern etching, French naval officer Charles Meryon was one of the most important artists to work in Waitaha / Canterbury during the colonial era. He served on the Rhin, stationed at Akaroa between 1843 and 1846, to look out for the French settlement there. Meryon made numerous pencil studies at Akaroa which he later used as the basis for this series of etchings completed back in Paris during the 1860s. He planned to publish these and other images of the Pacific in an album, which unfortunately he never completed. The story of the French attempt to settle Te Waipounamu / the South Island is a fascinating chapter in New Zealand’s history. A French whaling captain, Jean Langlois, purchased 30,000 acres from Kāi Tahu on Horomaka / Banks Peninsula in 1838 and returned to France to get government support to establish a French colony at Akaroa. It was from here that he hoped the French would be able to expand throughout the rest of the South Island. A company was formed and sixty- three French and German settlers set sail on the Comte de Paris. They arrived at Akaroa in August 1840 only to find a Union Jack flying at Takapūneke / Green’s Point signalling that British sovereignty had already been claimed. Today, Akaroa continues to retain something of a French flavour.
(Pickaxes and shovels, 17 February – 5 August 2018)