Artist’s stroke of genius

The wharenui (meeting house) is minuscule in the vast expanse of the painted canvas. Tiny delicate strokes with a thin brush render its familiar profile.

The painting is

(2003), an early work by local artist Andrea Hopkins, who currently has a must-see retrospective exhibition at the Whanga¯ rei Art Museum.

This work exemplifies what I think is most successful about Hopkins’ paintings: the contrast between fine delicacy and broad, expansively painted backgrounds.

This is a visual thing. It simply provides interest and pleasure for the eye to scan a large painting from further back, grasp its essential structure, then discover the small figures, patterns, symbols and landscape features embedded in the canvas.

To see properly you have to get up real close. This has the effect of making the experience personal and precious, like examining a piece of fine jewellery. But it’s not just a formal device, it works metaphorically as well. In Tu¯ rangawaewae, the effect is to locate the wharenui, that emblem of Ma¯ ori cultural continuity and renaissance, in a boundless universe of space and time.

When we stand somewhere

(tu¯ rangawaewae means “the right to stand in a place”), we only occupy a small space physically but a massive one culturally. We are tiny in the grand scheme of the universe, yet wondrously endowed with a cultural heritage. Language, art, ways of thinking about the world, were established before us and will continue after us.

The wharenui, a symbol of human culture and working together, exists within something much larger. It is dwarfed by and also protected by the immense space Hopkins evokes in her paintings. To return with a jewellery analogy, it’s like a precious ring displayed on a large felt-covered pillow.

In the sky section of the painting, again requiring us to get up close, is a recurring motif in Hopkins’ work, a Ma¯ ori kite (manu tukutuku).

These kites, abstracted and original, fly high and often in Hopkins’ paintings. And they are always a delight. They represent the creative spirit, a spiritual soaring.

Yet the kite flyer always has their feet on the ground. They can observe and imagine the experience of flight, without actually doing so.

The kite is a wonderful symbol of our desire to transcend our physical earth-bound selves, even though this is impossible.

We remain both of the sky and the land, of the spirit and the soil, of Rangi and Papa. The truth and beauty lies in the mutual harmony of opposites. Hopkins portrays these opposites powerfully in her best work.

What I often admire about Ma¯ ori artists, is their willingness to use symbolism that contains big ideas without any hint of irony. And so I find Hopkins’ work to be philosophical in a way that speaks to me as a non-Ma¯ ori.

But to someone who is Ma¯ ori, who lives in the culture, who has participated in kapa haka, like Hopkins herself did for many years, then these paintings must surely speak even more powerfully.

In particular, I’m thinking of her paintings featuring female figures, dancing and strutting in the landscape. They most often wear knee-length skirts, smart designer tops and high-heeled boots. They look like middle-class office workers, teachers, hospitality managers, small business entrepreneurs, who easily transition from work to cafe´ to nightclub.

These are confident modern women with a proud Ma¯ ori identity, shown by their faces, which recall carved imagery of classical Ma¯ ori design with a touch of Picasso-like abstraction thrown in.

(2010), (2010) and (2011) are masterworks which delight in optimism and spirited play.

As always, a review of an exhibition with a large number of works is impossible. Hopkins’ work has changed and evolved over the years, different paintings make different statements. You have to visit the exhibition to create your own experience of the work.

I can assure you, though, you’ll be uplifted, provoked and satisfied. The universalism present in these paintings speaks to us all.

Hopkins is a kite flyer, a skilled one, who deserves our admiration. 1 Which character was played by Richard Wilson in the television comedy One Foot in the Grave?

2 On the 30th of which month does

St Andrew’s Day fall?

3 By area, which Asian country is the

seventh largest in the world?

4 What was discovered by Wilhelm

Rontgemin 1895?

5 How is the Jewish Day of

Atonement better known? Q: What season is it when you are on a trampoline?

A: Spring time 27 BC Caesar Augustus was declared the first Emperor of the Roman Empire by the Senate.

1865 Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman decreed that 400,000 acres of land in the South would be divided into 40-acre lots and given to former slaves. (The order, later revoked by President Andrew Johnson, is believed to have inspired the expression, "Forty acres and a mule.")

1935 Fugitive gangster Fred Barker and his mother, Kate "Ma" Barker, were killed in a shootout with the FBI at Lake Weir, Florida.

1991 The White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. (Allied forces prevailed on Feb. 28, 1991.)

2003 The space shuttle Columbia blasted off for what turned out to be its last flight. The mission ended in tragedy on Feb. 1, when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.) 2007 Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., launched his successful bid for the White House.

● Hall of Fame auto racer A.J. Foyt is 84.

● Singer Barbara Lynn is 77.

● Singer Katherine Anderson Schaffner (The Marvelettes) is 75.

● Movie director John Carpenter is

71.

● Singer Sade (shah-DAY') is 60.

● Actor-writerdirector Josh Evans is 48.

● Model Kate Moss is 45. 1 Victor Meldrew; 2 November; 3 India; 4 X-Rays; 5 Yom Kippur. The Northern Advocate is subject to the New Zealand Media Council. Complaints to be first directed to editor@ northernadvocate.co.nz. If unsatisfied, the complaint may be referred to the Media Council, PO Box 10-879, The Terrace, Wellington 6143, or info@mediacouncil.org.nz. More details and an online complaints form available at www.mediacouncil.org.nz