REUBEN the BR AVE
Reuben Paterson has spread his wings in pursuit of the artist’s dream in New York City, but Aotearoa and its influence remain front of mind and the heart of his outputs, finds Tyson Beckett.
There’s always been a magical, mystical quality about artist Reuben Paterson (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tūhourangi, Scottish). In their own way, each of his works reflects and projects aspects of the other wordly.
There’s The Golden Bearing (2014), a life-sized, hand-sculpted tree with leaves dripping in gold, placed first in a New Plymouth park and later the more restrictive confines of gallery spaces and public squares, questioning what is reality and what is imagined.
And Guide Kaiārahi (2021), the 10m metal, acrylic and glass waka pitau that angles above a reflection pool into the sky outside the Auckland Art Gallery, thrusting through space and time in exploration of worlds beyond our own.
His signature spray of glitter, too, can be read as a way of investigating the possibility of a world that could be. The queer artist told Your Weekend in 2021 that the sparkling medium “has long been a way for us to make ourselves conspicuous even though doing so puts us in danger”.
So logging onto a video chat with Paterson, I’m not taken aback when the first visual I get of the Bucklands Beach-raised artist appears through a billowing cloud. Like a stag spotted on an early morning hunt, or a genie apparating from a lamp, Paterson’s bespectacled face and wide smile come into vision from behind a hazy mist.
It dissipates quickly, taking the illusion with it. This isn’t some astral shroud that surrounds the beguiling artist, a physical representation of his mana, it is actual vapour, sourced from a squat yellow vape that he keeps clutched close to his collarbone. The reveal feels befittingly gritty, given the landscape the celebrated artist finds himself in at the moment. The streets of New York City.
Ten months ago, after three decades operating on home soil as one of New Zealand’s most celebrated artists, the man known for his bold use of colour, mesmerising patterns and investigations of light, made another bold move – uprooting himself to pursue what is the prototypical artist's dream: creating a new life and new art in the world’s cultural capital.
That’s where I find him, sitting at a kitchen table against the backdrop of a subway tile lined kitchen. How did he get here? I venture as an opener. Or actually, why did he want to go?
“There's nothing like dreaming big in a very inspirational city like New York. It has been just that. I feel like everything is at my fingertips. All of my inspirations are at my fingertips,” says Paterson.
“I guess I have been very lucky to live out a lot of my art dreams and I just wasn’t sure what art dreams were left that were big enough for this big life I wanted, for this art practice. So I decided to bring it over here, to be forever inspired and to be as big as it can be.”
Paterson is finding excitement, and inspiration, all around him. He speaks of the people-watching opportunities that are, sometimes literally, on his doorstep. “I’m living in the Lower East Side, which is considered young and funky because it’s the centre of nightlife. I love this area because it’s so active during the day and all through the night, it borders some of my favourite neighbourhoods: Chinatown and The East Village. It’s a very exciting space to be in because it’s always preoccupied with horns and sirens and people yelling.”
Even the cross borough commute he treads daily between his apartment and his studio in Brooklyn’s Bushwick is proving novel. “It’s very much filled with the nuances of little things that happen on the streets and on the subway carts which are