An experimental view of the Central Otago landscape

Rita Angus, Central Otago, 1953, oil on canvas, Rita Angus: New Zealand Modernist | He Ringatoi Hou o Aotearoa exhibition at the Aigantighe Art Gallery.

Landscape painting has always held a central position in New Zealand art, with many artists over the years turning to the distinctive natural formations in their work.

It follows that much of this tradition has also been concentrated in the South Island, where mountains butt up to lakes, pastures, rivers and rolling hills, which eventually tumble out upon the ocean, all within a matter of a few hundred kilometres.

This unique quality is conveyed in Rita Angus’ painting Central Otago, 1953 (pictured).

Though Angus is well-known as a landscape painter, it is her famous portrait of Cass that most New Zealanders remember her by. In Cass, the remote high-country station standing alone among the tussock-covered hills is celebrated for how it captures a sense of isolation and ‘‘working the land’’ that was an important pillar of Pā kē ha national identity in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Central Otago presents a slightly different and more experimental view of the land, showing settlements and farms interspersed through the valleys and plains of the landscape. The flattened composition (and its slightly skewed perspective) conveys the essence of a mountains-to-sea South Island vista – as iconic to the region as the sun-scorched, golden grasses, dazzling blue waters, and small colonial village churches that her painting also depicts.

Central Otago features in Rita Angus: New Zealand Modernist | He Ringatoi Hou o Aotearoa, a major retrospective exhibition of one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated artists.

The exhibition will be on display at Aigantighe Art Gallery until February 12.