“Life influences art and as an architect and an artist I constantly search for the expression of beauty and emotion as part of my work.
Drawing enables me to better understand the exploration of the passing moment, what is seen and felt, the transitory nature of light on land sea and sky a descriptive gestural statement of the power and beauty of our natural environment before it has gone.”*
Painting is an extension of my visual experience of the Northland coastal landscapes, the natural architecture of cliffs and caves, headlands, beaches, estuaries and sky. It connects me to my memories of the places I have known since childhood.
This exhibition also represents my observations of recent coastal water related climate events which may be a sign of global warming.
At the beginning of 2023 extreme weather affected northeastern NZ and other parts of the North Island including a heavy rain fall period on Friday 27th January in Auckland.
This was preceded by the Hung-a Tonga-Hung-a Ha’apai volcanic eruption and a full moon which caused tidal surges to the exposed parts of the east coast of the North Island, geologically connected to the oceanic undersea volcanic Kermadec Trench existing north eastwards away from NZ towards Tonga. The consequent very high tides of tropical cyclone Hale and very low-pressure weather systems circulating in the Pacific battered coastal margins for several days.
High tides swept away dunes, natural embankments, cliff rock faces and sand margins and flooded estuaries and low-lying areas in the northeast.
A week later in early February 2023 cyclone Gabrielle added another deluge to already swamped coasts with atmospheric rivers of water descending again on the landscape.
These changing conditions of sea and sky, the huge black storm filled nights followed by rain washed morning skies and later bright summer sunshine at sea seen by boat after rain are vivid memories of mine.
A diary extract from an October lockdown 2021 night time storm: ‘waves pound inward as breakers crash far out to sea and foam spumes over rocks cloaking them in white boiling water then sliding back away into the dark churning mass.
Black rocks reappear and disappear as swirling waves lash them heavily and retreat. Surf like artillery booms all night on the beach – no one could survive this out at sea.’
I am reminded of the power of the sea, I think of historic ocean crossings, and I am amazed by the difficult conditions experienced by those using the sea over the last centuries to get here in flimsy wooden boats.
As weather conditions suddenly change in the southern Pacific in very short time frames it might have been terrifying for seafarers crossing the Pacific to NZ from the Pacific, or from Cape Horn, or even around the NZ Coast without power and under sail in such storms.
The land can appear very different seen from the sea when there is no shelter or safe harbour and now climate change may raise temperatures and sea levels beyond what we have ever known.
However, later comes a sense of calm after the storm a diary note writes of ‘metallic sea, mud, sand and weed, some wind from the east, a sunny blue sky, high white laced breakers flecked with foam and a day later ‘beautiful peaceful pale pearl dawn, soft pink sky, blue hues, and the sun rises bright and slowly over the sea into the new clear day.’
It is these memories of the water, wind and weather that surrounds this island archipelago in the southwest Pacific that keeps me painting it as a record of the transient moment before it has gone.
*Interview Kathryn Carter by Federico Monsalve, Editor, Home Magazine, article ‘Fleeting Architectures’, July 2022
Image: Rainwashed Bay, Medium : acrylic on archival paper, Size : 560 x 750 mm