Mural will finally be displayed
An artwork completed, but deemed too radical and never hung, is on display in Wellington almost 40 years since its completion.
The epic 20 metre-long, 3.6 metretall contemporary Ma¯ ori painting, Portrait of U¯ awa Tolaga Bay, sketches a community – a collection of faces, spirits, nature, pieces of the past, and futuristic wonders to represent times unknown.
Artist John Walsh, then 27 years old, finished the piece in 1980 for Hauiti Marae but its place there would never come to fruition. Debate followed and the 10 panels of painted chipboard became a source of controversy, ‘‘a national kicking ball, for five minutes’’.
Walsh put the work into storage at Para Matchitt’s studio in Hawke’s Bay. There it stayed for 38 years until yesterday, when the many faces of U¯ awa celebrated the artwork’s exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, to feature until February 10.
Walsh was the first contemporary Ma¯ ori artist to produce a series of realistic portraits of wha¯ nau.
He points out Jay, a surfer, a mate. Nelly’s rural delivery, Jimmy’s at the ‘‘exit’’ door.
Walsh’s mother and son are there, too, but there are more than 60 portraits of wha¯ nau and the locals who made up the small town. ‘‘This is us.’’
There’s a shape that appears to hold the community together, or cloud it, with eyes and legs. ‘‘It’s humanity itself, as a creature. Individually, we’re all trying to put out our recycling and save the world but en masse we are going to ruin this planet.
‘‘This kingfisher might swoop in and pick up this big bug, and I like that.’’
Walsh questioned how this ‘‘idyllic’’ rural, coastal community would change over time. ‘‘Even though it’s a small community, it’s got a huge whakapapa, history.
‘‘Many generations have come and gone through the place and so there are many amazing stories and historical events. I always tried to keep a sense of that, and the breadth of all of that.’’
Walsh hoped after the exhibition, the mural would find a permanent home in the public eye.
New Zealand Portrait Gallery director Jaenine Parkinson said the painting challenged long-established concepts of traditional Ma¯ ori art.
‘‘Sometimes there is truth in the saying, ‘time heals all wounds’ and we are delighted to host such an important work as it takes its place back in the public eye.’’
Walsh spent two years in the 1970s at Ilam School of Fine Arts in Canterbury but left early for his home town to teach himself to paint through portraiture while he worked seasonal fishing and farm jobs.
After Portrait of U¯ awa Tolaga Bay was put into storage, Walsh and his family left for Gisborne and eventually Wellington, where he went on to work as an artist and curator of contemporary Ma¯ ori art at Te Papa.
Walsh has continued to exhibit regularly in New Zealand and overseas with many of his pieces accompanying his larger-than-life painting at the NZ Portrait Gallery.