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Jane Zusters
C/ Te Karita R,
First Kaik,
Moeraki
25 May-8 July 2007-08
Forrester Gallery,
Oamaru
Forrester Gallery website: www.forrestergallery.com
An artful lure
Moeraki is like a letter;
wind and sea make ephemera of its shoreline and human additions.
The black tar of Hulme’s bach has all but given up its fight against the elements since Jane’s first visits to the Kaik in the 1970s. Its withered frame stands now an endangered species on New Zealand’s highly coveted and contested coastline.
The Moeraki works span three decades and a range of media. Encapsulated within each is Zusters’ emotional and spiritual attachment to the southern tradition of ‘cribbing’. The works are also well placed in the tradition of Southern New Zealand art, occupying the same murky melancholy that can be found in Keri Hulme’s. The Bone People, in Hulme’s and Robinson’s Homeplaces, and in local photographer Nigel Yates’ studies of the shore. Parallels can be drawn too between Zusters and Ann Shelton’s Black Bach and Zusters and Peter Peryer’s retro photographs of the boulders.
Zusters vision of Moeraki however is highly personalised. The painting blocks ‘On the Way to the Lighthouse, Kartigi Point’ and ‘Eight days in Moeraki’ in particular bring in a new aesthetic. Here Zusters has used a process called tonking, where paint is removed layer by layer with an absorbent paper. Zusters bold use of colour and layering allows the viewer a chance to see this well traveled place anew.
The wide variety of works on display also urges one to journey through the years and explore how an artist’s vision transcends time and media.
Anna Wild.
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