Elements of Art Colour Look and discuss Godwit/Kuaka by Ralph Hotere

Distance Learning Programme Today you will

Look closely at an artwork. – Notice how the artist has used colour. – Develop personal interpretations and vivid descriptions. – Connect to ideas about journeys, migration, arrivals and welcomes. – Discover ideas for future inquiry.

City Gallery Wellington You will need an internet connection Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour to look at artworks online.

Godwit/Kuaka

In 1977 Ralph Hotere painted an eighteen-metre long mural for Auckland International Airport. Originally titled The Flight of the Godwit it honoured the bar-tailed godwit (or kūaka), a migratory bird admired by Māori for its long-haul flights. Displayed in the Arrivals Hall, it welcomed returning New Zealanders and visitors alike. It was displayed at City Gallery in 2014.

City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour

Look and Discuss

Look at pictures of How would it feel to How do the colours Godwit/Kuaka at walk the length of this 18 change across the City Gallery. metre long painting? painting?

City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour Get Closer

Take a closer look at the Te Ara website. You can look at the whole painting and then zoom in and look across the painting from left to right. What do you notice about lines, texture and words? Brainstorm some words to describe them. What does it make you think of or imagine?

City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour This painting inspires different interpretations… Some people see a journey across a rainbow. What Some people see a did you flight over a landscape see? from a bird’s eye view. Some people see a tunnel travelling into the distance.

City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour This painting inspires vivid descriptions… ‘like a fragment from a monumental loom in What vivid which carefully drawn description stripes are never-ending can you warps that bind the devise? darkness of night to the colour of the day.’ ‘like a...’ From ‘Ralph Hotere’s Godwit/Kuaka mural’, Ron Bronson

City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour

About the work

Colour Surface Text Godwit/Kuaka is The surface is a delicate Lines of text are arranged covered in bands of pattern of fine lines over the surface of the colour spanning the and layers of mottled painting. Along the bottom spectrum from red to textures which the of the first three panels violet, moving into deep artist created by flicking are the words black in the central paint with his fingertips Hau Mai, tau mai, panels and back out from an upturned nau mai into colour. housepainter’s brush. (’Enter here, rest here, you are welcome here’). In the dark central panels the arrival of the godwits is celebrated with words from an ancient Te Aupōuri chant taught to Hotere by his father. City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour

Themes and Ideas

Bird Migration Human Travels Spirit Journeys The painting honours The work was originally Godwit/Kuaka is often the bar-tailed godwit or commissioned for connected with the notion kūaka. Every year these the Arrivals Hall at of travelling – the flight birds leave their breeding Auckland International path of the kūaka, the grounds in Alaska and fly Airport, the reference arrival of passengers, the south, without stopping to the arrival of the journey of the spirit, or for food or rest, to arrive migratory godwit the physical journey the in each a metaphor for the viewer takes walking along September. incoming planes and the many panels. passengers.

City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour

About the Artist

Ralph Hotere (1931-2013, Te Aupōuri and ) is one of New Zealand’s most significant painters. He was born in , Northland and raised in a devout roman catholic family. Hotere worked as a secondary school arts advisor in Northland and Auckland before traveling to Europe in 1961, returning to live around from 1969.

Hotere was a key figure in the emergence of Māori modernism. In the 1970s, he became known for his hard-edged lacquer paintings. These highly symbolic, op-art abstractions feature vertical lines, crosses, and circles drawn on black backgrounds. Portrait of artist, Ralph Hotere, photographed by Kenneth Quinn on the 7th of April 1988. City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour National Library of New Zealand PAColl-3712

About the Artist

His work often features language and text. He collaborated with New Zealand poets such as and , and incorporated traditional Māori poems into his paintings. These words are often stencilled or hand painted over a variety of surfaces such as canvas and corrugated iron.

Hotere made a number of political works reacting to social and environmental issues. The Sangro series is a memorial to his brother who fought in the Māori Battalion in World War II. The Aromoana series arose from Hotere’s concerns about the environmental impact of an aluminium smelter at Aromoana in Otago, while Black Union Jack protested against a controversial rugby tour made by New Zealand during the apartheid era.

City Gallery Wellington Ralph Hotere Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour Dawn/Water Poem 1986 Find out more

Look at some other You can read more about past exhibitions at Godwit/Kuaka, including City Gallery featuring a translation of the Ralph Hotere. chant Ralph Hotere: Ruia ruia, opea opea, Out the Black Window tahia tahia into English. at Auckland Art Gallery. Ralph Hotere: Black Phoenix

City Gallery Wellington Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour Inquiry – Godwits and Migration What do you know about Make this bar-tailed godwits or Imagine the flight path kūaka? What would you you took to get from like to find out more home to school. about? Or an important journey Try researching their made by you or your preferred habitats, diet, family. and migration routes. What environmental Draw the journey from pressures do they face. a bird’s-eye view. How are kūaka significant in Māori culture?

City Gallery Wellington Draw a journey from a Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour bird’s-eye view Inquiry – Arrivals and Welcomes Godwit/Kuaka once Make this welcomed overseas Imagine an artwork for Could any ideas be travellers arriving at an airport arrivals lounge. adapted to create an Auckland Airport. What form would artwork for the place How do you welcome your artwork take? where people arrive at people arriving at your Perhaps a painting, film your school? home or school? performance, or gift. How are visitors welcomed onto a marae? Find out about ways people from different cultures welcome their guests.

City Gallery Wellington Imagine an artwork for an Distance Learning Programme Elements of Art – Colour airport arrivals lounge