B.
Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) by Ralph Hotere
Collection
This article first appeared in The Press on 28 March 2007
Among the highlights of the Christchurch Art Gallery's drawing collection is Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) by Otago artist Ralph Hotere. Produced in 1977 Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) illustrates Hotere's development from his formal geometric approach found in his earlier work of the late 1960s and early 1970s towards the more expressive manner he developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Ralph Hotere Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) 1977. Lacquer, ink, pencil. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1978. Reproduced courtesy of Ralph Hotere
In Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) dense, colourful layers of lacquer have been freely applied like splattered raindrops, built up and absorbed into the body of the paper support. Over this field of lacquer a black rectangle of ink has been applied which subdues the expressive nature of the surface below yet allows subtle changes in tone throughout the composition. Hotere has worked over this dark mat background with pencil which provides a luminous silver sheen to the surface of the work. It is this element that brings the work within the definition of drawing in the traditional sense.
Text has been a prominent element in Hotere's work since the early 1960s and a poem by Hotere's father, Tangirau Hotere, is effectively incorporated into Drawing (KO WAI KOE?). Drawn in pencil, the stencilled Māori text ‘KO WAI KOE' melds with the abstract composition posing the question to the viewer - WHO ARE YOU? Cultural and self identity are central issues in much of Hotere's art and the inclusion of Māori text both within the composition and bordering the top right corner provides a context for the drawing.
Tenei taku manu te rere atu nei - he karere - no Te whitinga mai o te ra. Pataia mai - i ahu mai Koe i hea? KO WAI KOE? (This is my bird that flies to you - a messenger from where the sun rises - It asks from where have you come? WHO ARE YOU?)
Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) actively engages the viewer, enquiring into who we are and what makes us who we are. The past is an integral part of this and common to all is a unique ancestral heritage which plays an important roll, influencing who we are and where we have come from.
Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) was awarded first prize in the International of Drawings held in March and April of 1978 at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery. Organised by Christchurch printmaker Barry Cleavin it was the premier visual arts event for the 1978 Christchurch Arts Festival and included drawings by 193 artists from 35 countries.
Participation in the exhibition was by invitational letter with New Zealand art commentator Hamish Keith serving as the adjudicator. Among notable international entrants were Victor Pasmore, Joe Tilson, Kumi Sugai and Clinton Adams. Other New Zealand entrants alongside Hotere included Tony Fomison, Pat Hanly, Colin McCahon, Philip Trusttum and Toss Woollaston. The award afforded the Christchurch public the opportunity to view an extremely wide range of approaches to drawing and the catalogue accompanying the exhibition revels a huge variation in techniques and styles. The very notion of what constituted a drawing was freely interpreted by participating artists, many of whom did not confine their works merely to traditional graphic mediums such as pencil or charcoal. Many works expanded the traditional definitions of ‘drawing' with Cleavin stating at the time that the main criterion laid down was artistic excellence, not method. This is certainly the case with Hotere's Drawing (KO WAI KOE?) where the mediums of painting and drawing have been effectively united.
A member of the Aupouri tribe Hotere was born at Taikarawa in Northland in 1931 and initially studied art at the Dunedin Teachers' College in 1952. He received a New Zealand Art Societies Fellowship in 1961 which allowed him to study at the Central School of Art in London. He returned to New Zealand in 1965 and was awarded the prestigious Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1969. He moved to Port Chalmers in 1972 where he continues to live and work.
Peter Vangioni
Related reading: Ralph Hotere
Collection
Ralph Hotere Drawing (Ko Wai Koe?)
Ko Wai Koe? Ralph Hotere asks ‘who are you?’ in large stencilled letters at the bottom of this drawing. The artist has also inscribed the top and side of the drawing with Tenei taku manu te rere atu nei – he karere – no Te whitinga mai o te ra. Pataia mai – i ahu mai koe i hea? (This is my bird that flies to you – a messenger from where the sun rises. It asks from where have you come?) Dense ink and lacquer saturate the work like black raindrops, soaking through the paper and providing an impenetrable surface over which Hotere has worked; his intense graphite mark-making has a subtle reflective quality depending on the light. Hotere has embraced the use of diecuts, such as the small square void amongst graphite marks that allows the surface beneath to emerge. (Die Cuts and Derivations, 11 March – 2 July 2023)
Notes
Ralph Hotere: Ātete (to resist)
The extraordinary exhibition Ralph Hotere: Ātete (to resist) provided Ōtautahi Christchurch audiences with a truly remarkable opportunity to experience artworks by Ralph Hotere at first hand. Ralph was one of Aotearoa’s most talented artists and, significantly for Christchurch, two of his most notable works, Godwit/Kuaka (1977) and Black Phoenix (1984–88), were shown for the first time in the city.
Commentary
Ralph Hotere: Ātete (to resist)
Ralph Hotere’s art charted his journeys throughout Aotearoa and the world, reflecting on his experiences, identity and politics. As the first major survey exhibition of Hotere’s artistic career for over twenty years, Ātete celebrates his achievements and brings his vision to a new generation. It’s been a huge project to bring together so we thought it was timely to ask the four curators to tell us a little about their relationship with Hotere – how do they connect as individuals with the artist’s works, and the themes and the locations that they explore?
Exhibition
Hotere
The Gallery marks the passing of Ralph Hotere with paintings selected from the collection.
Notes
Ralph Hotere
Hard to believe two years have already gone by since the passing of Ralph Hotere on 24th February 2013. Unlike many public galleries around the country at the time of his passing Christchurch Art Gallery was frustratingly unable to display any works by Ralph from the collection due to our ongoing closure.
Notes
Ralph Hotere (Te Aupōuri) 11 Aug 1931 - 24 Feb 2013
Join us in commemorating the first anniversary of the death of one of New Zealand's most significant and acclaimed artists.
Notes
Black Union Jack
With the death of Nelson Mandela, the history of the anti-apartheid struggle is being re-examined, including the protest movement that emerged here in New Zealand.
Notes
Black Painting
Ralph Hotere's recognition as a Member of the Order of New Zealand in the New Year was a fitting tribute to an artist whose work has truly reflected social, political and environmental issues relating to New Zealand and the wider international community throughout his career.
Collection
Ralph Hotere Malady Panels
A poem by Bill Manhire was the inspiration for this series of paintings. It repeated the words ‘malady’, ‘melody’ and ‘my lady’ and the repetition, simplicity and strong emotion of the poem appealed to Ralph Hotere. ‘Melody’ and ‘malady’ come together in ‘my lady’, suggesting that deep-felt love can be both a sickness and a delight.
The fine circles in the paintings suggest the fragility of love, and their intense colour celebrates its beauty. Hotere made several works based on this poem during the early 1970s.
Hotere was born in Taikarawa, Northland, and was widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s greatest living artists. He is represented in public and private collections throughout New Zealand. He lived at Port Chalmers near Dunedin.
Collection
Ralph Hotere, Bill Culbert Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Bill Culbert, Ralph Hotere Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Ralph Hotere, Bill Culbert Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Bill Culbert, Ralph Hotere Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Ralph Hotere, Bill Culbert Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Ralph Hotere, Bill Culbert Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Bill Culbert, Ralph Hotere Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Bill Culbert, Ralph Hotere Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
The isolated sandspit of Aramoana, located close to Ralph Hotere’s home in Careys Bay near Ōtepoti Dunedin, provided him with both physical and spiritual nourishment. It was where he gathered cockles and mussels, became refreshed and gained inspiration for his art. During the 1970s and 80s, it was the site of a bitter environmental battle when the government proposed building an aluminium smelter there. Hotere and many others fiercely opposed the plan. This print relates to a sculpture Hotere made with his great friend Bill Culbert in which a row of pāua shells was ‘cut through’ by a long line of fluorescent light tubes. It includes the Māori phrase ‘Ko wai koe?’, or ‘who are you?’, emphasising Hotere’s strong association between place and identity.
(Absence, May 2023)
Collection
Ralph Hotere, Bill Culbert Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Ralph Hotere, Bill Culbert Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Bill Culbert, Ralph Hotere Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Ralph Hotere, Bill Culbert Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Ralph Hotere, Bill Culbert Pathway to the Sea - Aramoana
In te reo Māori, Aramoana means ‘pathway to the sea’. It’s also a small settlement on the Otago Peninsula, near where Ralph Hotere had his studio – and where Hotere and fellow artist Bill Culbert protested against the building of an aluminium smelter, which they were concerned would degrade the harbour. The two were great friends, and Culbert would return to Aotearoa New Zealand most years from his home in Europe (usually during Bluff oyster season) to collaborate on large-scale sculptural works with Hotere. This suite of lithographs extends the ideas of one of Hotere and Culbert’s earliest sculptural collaborations, also titled Pathway to the Sea – Aramoana. It features the glasses of wine they enjoyed together, the pāua shells and fluorescent tubes of the installation work, and questions about place and personal identity.
(Te Wheke, 2020)
Collection
Ralph Hotere Drawing For Requiem Series
Ralph Hotere’s Requiem Series of paintings of 1973–74 refers to the Catholic mass for the dead and his use of dark, subdued tones throughout the series imbues a sense of contemplative reflection. In this related drawing, flowing watercolour washes are overlaid with precisely executed pinstripe lines of paint creating a striking contrast between the spontaneous and the orderly.
Hotere (of Aupouri descent) was born in Taikarawa, in Northland. A New Zealand Art Societies Fellowship Scholarship in 1961 enabled him to travel to London to study at the Central School of Art. He also travelled extensively throughout Europe. Hotere returned to New Zealand in 1965 and from 1969 was based in Dunedin. His work dealt with environmental issues, politics, poetry, religion, colonialism and racism. The Arts Foundation of New Zealand listed him as an inaugural Icon Artist in 2003.
Collection
Ralph Hotere Black Painting
1969 was a watershed year for Ralph Hotere. It was the year he was awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at the University of Otago, which led to his permanent move to Dunedin and Port Chalmers. Black Painting is not only one of the first purely abstract paintings to enter the collection, it is also the first painting by a Māori artist to be acquired. In Hotere’s enigmatic series of Black Paintings from 1968 and 1969, pinstripe circles or lines pierce the void of the dark backgrounds. Black Painting was acquired from the 1969 Group Show in Christchurch by Muir, who had studied under Hotere in Auckland during the mid-1960s.
(1969 Comeback Special 27 August – 6 November 2016)
Collection
Ralph Hotere Kyrie Eleison 3 (Requiem Series)
A requiem is a Catholic mass for the souls of the dead that is performed as an act of remembrance. Ralph Hotere painted his Requiem series in 1973–4 as an elegy for composer and friend Tony Watson, who took his own life in 1973. Ralph’s use of dark, subdued tones throughout the series imbues a sense of contemplative reflection. The repetition of the title Kyrie Eleison, meaning ‘Lord, have mercy’, creates an incantation and visual rhythm, an example of the way Ralph often appropriated text to create structure and form as well as meaning.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )
Notes
Sangro Litany by Ralph Hotere
The Sangro series, begun in 1962, is a memorial to Ralph Hotere's brother Jack, who fought with the Maori Battalion and whose grave lies among those of hundreds of other young soldiers at the Sangro River War Cemetery on Italy's Adriatic Coast.