Onawe 1832 Scroll & Fans Exhibition Detail

Onawe 1832 Scroll & Fans

This recent work is informed by the landscape of Banks Peninsula and Onawe. My work explores narratives of the past. It is my intention to revive stories of old and to acknowledge the significance of this history. Onawe is a place extremely sacred - Tapu to Maori.

An Atua ‘Te Pa Nui O Hau’ The Goddess of the Wind once dwelt on Onawe’s summit. Onawe was a sacred home to her and she spoke to the spirit world and to those who heard the supernatural. Musket fire silenced Te Pa Nui O Hau as she was unaccustomed to such loud noise and intrusion.

As a symbol of the past I have chosen to work with the fan. Popular during the colonial era the fan was often used by women as a fashion accessory. Whale bone was a common material used in shaping clothing and decoratively. Sailors would use whale bone or tooth to draw into creating scrimshaw as keepsakes. Japanese aesthetic also influences my art. I have studied the masterpiece ‘The Long Landscape Scroll’ by Sesshu 1486. Compositional principles exercised in the layout of the scroll and of the traditional fan influence my work. I see the fan as a metaphor for wind, drawing a link to the Maori goddess of wind and as a symbol of Colonialism. These works pay homage to the spirit of Te Pa Nui o Hau and her sacred peninsula home Onawe.

My work Onawe Landscape Scroll depicts a culmination of events where in 1832 Captain Stewarts brig the Elizabeth and waka approach the Pa at Onawe, the intrusion of Te Rauparaha and his warriors started the musket fire which silenced the Goddess of the Wind and decimated the Tangata Whenua of Banks Peninsula. This piece is made in respect and commemoration. 

Historical and artistic references:

Maori Myth and Legend - A. W. Read

Explorers, Whalers and Tattooed Sailors  - Edited by Gordon Ell and Sarah

Pakeha Maori - Trevor Bently.

Japonisme - Siegfried Winchman

Tales of Banks Peninsula - Victoria University Press. Histories.

Akaroa Museum

A Frontier of Chaos? Article. NZ History.

In Search of Paradise - Graeme Lay