Art, Modern

Uncounted Cadences is a drawing installation in the thesis exhibition that furthers my exploration in tracing movement through psychological and physical geographies. Gestural drawings of human and animal bodies in motion are woven into local landscape imagery that is printed with powdered charcoal through a silkscreen. Using both additive and subtractive processes, the layering and erasure suggest loss, reclamation, and the nature of memory. The drawings are cut and provisionally reassembled into a cinematic sequence as if they are pieces of film being edited and spliced. This process shows an unfolding over time and involves listening to the rhythmic pacing of bodies morphing, decaying, birthing, or leaving. Time is not experienced as progress ; rather, the rearrangement of fragments allows for a continuous retelling of stories.

Maori art forms are replete with symbolism entrenched in Maori cosmogony, as well as with political issues arising from the relationship of colonizer to colonized. This interdisciplinary project examined the core symbols, issues and stories present in Maori traditional and contemporary art and dance to determine the way in which the content present in these art forms acts as an active agent in the formation and perpetuation of Maori cultural identity in New Zealand. A secondary aim of the project was to examine the relationship of Maori to the greater Aotearoa/New Zealand culture thereby identifying common and contrasting themes and issues present within both cultures. Aotearoa/New Zealand is unique in that the indigenous society has equal rights with the British, now New Zealanders, who colonized them and, through the arts, Maori have gained tremendous ground in becoming a vital partner in the ongoing creation of New Zealand's cultural identity. One of the central issues that repeatedly appeared in all the art forms analyzed was the push and pull that exists for Maori struggling to retain a Maori identity and compete in the non-Maori world. Identity for Aotearoa/New Zealand Maori and Pakeha, or non-Maori, alike is created in response to, in conflict with, in tandem with, and in spite of their respective cultures, thus creating yet another aspect of push and pull dynamics in New Zealand.