‘If I’m lost, happy, sad – I paint’
Star Gossage can pull faces out of paint.
A collection ofmore than 30 dreamy impressionist paintings by Pa¯kiri-based Gossage (Nga¯ti Wai/Nga¯ti Ruanui) are set to dazzle at a new capital exhibition, He Tangata The People, which opens today at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pu¯kenga Whakaata.
‘‘I can see faces and see things in them, they just come out,’’ the wa¯hine Ma¯ori artist says of the sometimes-shadowy, spiritual figures featured in her works.
‘‘They’re not of anyone in particular. It’s more universal. I feel a particular feeling, that’s what I paint, it’s expressed through people.’’
Those feelings are moments that affect her or mean something to her. They are not the same all the time, but Gossage says there is something similar in them.
‘‘I guess that’s just me – my own character, me navigating my life. I’ve had pretty bad depression in my life. Sadness, happiness. All that filters through in those paintings.’’
The nonspecific identities being sourced from her unconscious or her feelings means the painting process is often emotional.
‘‘It’s my everyday life. Sometimes I’d go away with cousins to a beach, feel really emotional at the images I see in my mind, then come back and paint them.’’
While the figures can be nondescript, Gossage says her mother used to translate who they were to her.
Friends and clients have also commented years later, recognising a particular figure from a particularwork.
‘‘It’s quite magical ... someone may buy a painting and have it really affect them in someway. I’m really honoured.’’
Gossage lives on ancestral land with wha¯nau on the east coast north of Auckland.
The exhibition came about after the gallery approached her about the idea of displaying
something that spanned her artistic career of three decades, having started painting at 17.
The selected work explores ideas of the interconnectedness of humanity and connections to the land through portraiture. An obvious reference point is Gossage’s homeland, Pa¯kiri, north of Auckland.’’
‘‘My family have always lived there ... on the land beside the sea. I have a big rambling garden. I can plant things all day, me and my sisters ...
‘‘Every day I live in that
environment, it influences my work.’’
While her style has shifted from fully abstract to impressionist, the themes (aroha/ love, rangima¯rie/peace) have remained the same, she says.
Grant Hall, exhibition cocurator, says the work is biographical, in that it comes from a base of personal truth in its themes of the interconnectedness of wahine (woman) and whenua (land). ‘‘She is the whenua, she is literally part of the landscape.’’
Despite being highly
biographical, the show is also intuitive and emotive, Hall says. ‘‘There’s mystery to it.’’
Gossage hopes the exhibition will inspire young, as well as wa¯hine Ma¯ori, artists.
‘‘It gives me peace to be an artist. It’s always been what I turn to in everything. It’s like a great friend, it’s helped me my whole life.
‘‘If I’m lost, happy, sad – I paint. I’m very blessed to have that.’’
Star Gossage: He Tangata The People, NZ Portrait Gallery, until February 14, free.