20 YEARS AN ARTIST
LESTER HALL USES ART TO MAKE SENSE OF NEW ZEALAND’S MULTI-CULTURAL HISTORY — AND FUTURE
Lester Hall uses art to make sense of Aotearoa’s multi- cultural history — and future
LESTER HALL HAS a great idea, which is hardly news since the Northland-based artist is neither short of ideas nor the ability to articulate them in his work. He wants Aotearoa to initiate an international competition called the World Cup of Colonized Outcomes. Then he wants us to win it.
“We are trying to make this relationship between Māori and Pākehā work, but we don’t take it seriously enough. If there were a world cup for creating the best colonized nation in the world, we would have a plan, and we would find ways to win it. Our politicians would lead us to victory. But they are silent on how we should deal with Treaty of Waitangi reparations. Like a bunch of spoiled brats, we just talk about money.”
Lester’s work, often an eyebrow-raising tongue-in-cheek perspective on the connection/collision of the colonial worlds of Māori and Pākehā, has found its way into the homes and hearts of many New Zealanders. And no one is more surprised by this than the artist himself.
“I started the Ngāti Pākehā series 25 years ago when it was still ‘horis and whities’; trying to make sense of stuff within myself. It wasn’t to make money. I had an exhibition thinking I would maybe sell two prints, but I ended up with a business.”
Lester has never planned his life, which is probably a good thing because for the most part, he hasn’t had a high opinion of himself. Without the serendipity of fateful interventions, he’d surely have sold himself short.
“I never thought I’d create something good enough for me to respect; that I’d draw anything properly. I expected to fail. That there are some artworks I am proud of is an absolute surprise. I can’t believe it. I am astonished that I make a living from art.”
The universe, however, saw otherwise and from time to time threw Lester a lifeline. The way he sees it, everything good has come along at the hand of fate - his art and health diagnosis being two great examples. Firstly his art.
Meet Lester in his 20s. He’s left adolescence behind in his hometown of Wellington and moved to Auckland. He’s a boozer (a drunk, to be honest), a casual but skilled labourer, hooning around - sometimes drunkenly - on a 10-speed bike or in a “broken-arse” Fiat 127 with an old-fashioned dial telephone on the dashboard and a pair of Barbie dolls doing high kicks from the windscreen wipers. (His first car had been a 1960 Cadillac Fleetwood convertible in which there might have been some late-night speed runs along the motorway near Porirua with no exhaust pipes, flames lighting up the underside of the car. But that was another time, right?)
While life doesn’t fit Lester comfortably, it is not entirely black either. Where he sees ugliness, he also sees the potential for visual improvements. He recalls, as a little boy, staring at the dashboard of the family car, wanting to make it look nicer with a thicker piece there, a slimmer one here...
Also always with him in that imperfect world are the teachings of the Catholic nuns and priests of his Island Bay childhood. Visions of terrifying demons and the everlasting flames of hell are unwelcome companions.
“Women looking like Batman in their nun’s outfits telling me every day that there are devils everywhere. It is dreadful, as a fiveyear-old, to be constantly in a cycle of terrifying questioning: Is hell real? Answer: Yes, hell is real. Will the burning hurt forever? Answer: Yes, you will feel the pain forever.”