Waenganui

Ellsworth Kelly’s Black over Blue painting (1963) was influential in the development of this work. Kelly’s comment “…the shape finds its own space and always demands its freedom and separateness” resonates on an artistic and cultural level. As a Māori woman who grew up speaking English and yet did not identify as Pākehā meant, the in-between forever formal grey area had to exist in colour regardless of its ambiguity. This dichotomy which still exists today is what I’ve tried to capture in Waenganui.