okay one more post before Christmas

Well, I thought that would be it for this year, but then, I was in the backyard, and I saw this!

Now aint that the most phallic flower you have ever seen!

Merry Christmas!!!

Whaingaroa

Well, seeing as it's Christmas (almost) and summer (I wish) for the next week or so I can't imagine my self spending a great amount of time on the computer. So here is the poster to my next lot of exhibitions. Please join me at the openings if you can, and feel free pass this on to friends. The file should be big enough to print a small one off even, however, please let me know if you'd like a real invite and I will send you one.

I have been trying to write a bit of a blurb about this work, so here it is...
The unique culture of small town Aotearoa, New Zealand has inspired me to explore its people, the symbols of our culture, and land that has defined us. Small town New Zealand is changing, in fact New Zealand is changing and this is strongly reflected in the shift of us now living in cities as the majority of us now do, where as not so long ago, the majority of us were from small towns and rural areas. While change is inevitable looking at who we are today, and where we have come from is an important part of understanding our culture. This work reflects this and is a conceptual and personal artistic exploration of a town that is slowly changing along with the rest of our country. This work glimpses at symbols of both the old, and at the new, and it reflects on our relation, our interaction, and our similarity to our surroundings. While based in Whaingaroa Raglan this work is as much a study of quintessential New Zealand as it is a study of the land and people of a specific town.

With these thoughts in mind, I feel like sharing something else. I love this country, I havn't seen the whole world, but I've seen a bit of it, parts of Australia, America, Canada, Rarotonga, Fiji, South Africa, Singapore etc and one thing that I always love about being here is my ability to have my own space. To be able to walk home at night by myself, to go for bush walks, and beach walks by my self. To sit by my self in the dusk light, enjoy this place and take the odd picture, to lie in bed and hear the crickets with my doors open at night and not be afraid. It seems that while a change has happend over a long period of time, and as our water became unsafe to drink out of the rivers, so too walking alone became more unsafe. But is seems over the last year, that this growth of lack of saftey has grown at a much greater speed. It has struck me I suppose since things have been happening much closer to home. In fact, a place where I was photographing only a week ago and have photograhed many times before in the evening and at dusk by myself was the scene of a rape a few days ago. Sure these things have happend for years, but try telling that to the girl that this happend to, and for sure it is becoming so much more commen. What can we do? I don't know, but we sure shouldn't accept is as the normal!

Well, it's a crap note to leave on for this time of year I suppose, but it's well worth thinking about. But still life needs to be lived, and I suppose that's it really, who knows what will happen to us, and when. So, here is one of my favorite quotes "the future is no time to place your better days"

Merry Christmas and a really awesome New Year!!!!

Aotearoa abstract

In and along these lines, of being a patriotic kiwi, I have been exploring some work along these lines. One of them being a type of abstract Aotearoa landscape... Most likely to be done in colour, but my first experiments were in black and white.