My 2007 exhibition at Reflections Gallery – The Melding – reflected aspects of the New Zealand, bi-cultural way of life founded on the Treaty of Waitangi. The works included motifs from closely connected places such as Polynesia, Melanesia and Europe. The works play with cultural assimilation: where do we each join, cross or remain separate?

 

The title The Melding also refers to the blending of traditional picture making (such as charcoal drawing) and modern printmaking technologies used to make the works; to Pacific printmaking on tapa cloth, as well as European fabric and flag design; and also to the way my WearableArt entry ‘The Surveyors’, winner of the 2005 South Pacific Section of the WearableArt Awards, was used as a springboard to take art which was created for the body, back onto the wall. This turn-about of Dame Suzie Moncrieff’s vision for WearableArt to “take art off the wall and onto the body” flagged the value, for me, of WearableArt within my art practice.

 

From 1996 to 2000 my design work took me to Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Indonesia where experience of village life and cultural activities strongly influenced my art practice. I believe that within the context of the South Pacific, the nature/cultural relationship is inseparable from negotiation and interplay between cultural groups.

 

> Limited Edition Prints for sale go to www.janetbathgateART.com