Shane Cotton: Kei Muri Ngā Mea I Te Rā

Comprised of new and recent works this exhibition presents painting, screen prints and sculptural forms and is grounded in the exploration of possibility of meaning, and the unending search to know and understand more about who we are and where we are from. 

Kei Muri Ngā Mea I Te Ra is Kororareka (Russell) based artist Shane Cotton’s (Ngāti Rangi, Ngāti Hine, Te Uri Taniwha) first solo exhibition in Te Tai Tokerau (Northland).

The exhibition references Ngāpuhi tūpuna, important landmarks within Te Tai Tokerau and includes a visual language featuring vase forms, te taiao (the natural world), maunga, tiki, kōwhaiwhai and waka.

It includes Uenuku Kuare, a tūpuna depicted in tiki form and supported by two manaia framing this important figure. A suite of six new screenprints expand on the vessel motif, while the sculptural work Te Puāwai, that has been included in recent major exhibitions Toi Tu Toi Ora at Auckland Art Gallery and Te Puāwai at The Dowse Art Museum, features Cotton’s iconography painted directly onto the body of a hand-crafted boat. While two new works make a debut in this exhibition. Te Puāwai II and No Ordinary Bird feature a floral element. This lily-like plant grows out of one of Cotton’s vessel forms in one painting and is held delicately by the tiki in the other painting.

Each work tells its own story in Kei Muri Nga Mea I Te Rā and is an example of Cotton’s unique understanding of paint and composition developed over 30 years of painting.