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Picture Painting; Shane Cotton; 1994; 1994/8
Name/Title
Picture Painting
Picture Painting
About this object
Picture Painting is a hybrid of Mäori and Päkehä images; a fusion of European and Mäori imagery, it is a painting which brings together two different pictures. The pot derives from Rongopai, the 1887 wharenui or meeting-house near Gisborne, which contains important figurative and naturalistic paintings; the plant from a painting by Gordon Walters influenced by Paul Klee. In 1993, when Shane Cotton took up a lectureship in traditional and contemporary Mäori art at Massey University's Mäori Studies Department, he began studying early Mäori figurative painting and was impressed both by the images and 'the weight of what they were saying'. ' . . . the pot and plant image features frequently throughout [meeting-] houses on the East Coast. Given that this image began to appear during times of land confiscation . . . there is no doubt about its political significance as a statement of land ownership, and the reaffirmation of a hapu's connection to their area . . . The images deal with aspects of acculturation, appropriation, identity and history intertwined with narrative and myth'. Cotton sees his work drawing attention to a Mäori art form which had previously received little recognition. Gregory O'Brien noted in Shane Cotton's work ' . . . an imaginative commentary on Empire and the process of colonisation, sifting through the iconography, as well as the junk, of English colonialism and filtering them through a Mäori perspective'. (from The Guide, 2001)
Picture Painting is a hybrid of Mäori and Päkehä images; a fusion of European and Mäori imagery, it is a painting which brings together two different pictures. The pot derives from Rongopai, the 1887 wharenui or meeting-house near Gisborne, which contains important figurative and naturalistic paintings; the plant from a painting by Gordon Walters influenced by Paul Klee. In 1993, when Shane Cotton took up a lectureship in traditional and contemporary Mäori art at Massey University's Mäori Studies Department, he began studying early Mäori figurative painting and was impressed both by the images and 'the weight of what they were saying'. ' . . . the pot and plant image features frequently throughout [meeting-] houses on the East Coast. Given that this image began to appear during times of land confiscation . . . there is no doubt about its political significance as a statement of land ownership, and the reaffirmation of a hapu's connection to their area . . . The images deal with aspects of acculturation, appropriation, identity and history intertwined with narrative and myth'. Cotton sees his work drawing attention to a Mäori art form which had previously received little recognition. Gregory O'Brien noted in Shane Cotton's work ' . . . an imaginative commentary on Empire and the process of colonisation, sifting through the iconography, as well as the junk, of English colonialism and filtering them through a Mäori perspective'. (from The Guide, 2001)
Maker
Shane Cotton
Shane Cotton
Maker Role
Artist
Artist
Date Made
1994
1994
Medium and Materials
oil on canvas
oil on canvas
Measurements
1833 x 1522mm
1833 x 1522mm
Subject and Association Description
still life, pots, flowerpots, flowers, politics, identity, land rights
still life, pots, flowerpots, flowers, politics, identity, land rights
Credit Line
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 1994
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 1994
Object Type
Painting
Painting
Object number
1994/8
1994/8
