Resource Sheet for Shane Cotton:
Use these notes for assembling a response to the questions in the 1.1 task Sheet.
Remember to put it in your own words, and read the question carefully before
beginning. The following notes are excerpts from Te Haerangqa: The Journey,
Shane Cotton’s development as an artist, by Dr. Deidre Brown, 1997. You can
access this article on the internet, and in the Shane Cotton book in the classroom.
His early works focussed on biological classifications as a means of controlling
people, especially indigenous cultures (Sheilds, 1990), and depicted the “colonial
game of survival of the fittest”. His work is classed as “Post-Colonial Discourse” or
making a comment about/stimulating discussion about, colonisation of Maori people
and land by Europeans in the mid nineteenth century.
He uses a “vocabulary of forms” derived from
o Pakeha landscape images, referencing a non-Maori view of their land
o Hongi Hika’s writing practice books, who was one of the first Maori to
realise that European writing and reading was a way to great power. He
abused his power by buying guns and waging war on Maori of other tribes,
causing thousands of deaths from Auckland to Rotorua (Mokoia Island).
o Hakari feasting stage (“a high wooden framework on which food is placed”
(H.W. Williams, Dictionary of the Maori Language). The Mountain on a
platform in “Diamond Line”, and “Artificial Curiosities” (1993) alludes to
arrival of Europeans and the “feast” of land they found.
o Popular Culture: references the dominant European culture that Maori
people today relate to more than their indigenous culture.
o Ringatu Figurative Painting: first used in place of customary carvings and
abstract kowhaiwhai paintings on the structural framework of Ringatu
churches and meeting houses. Please refer to the book/photocopies in the
classroom for images from this meeting house.
Expanded notes on this:
The paintings depict religious/political iconography of the Church, including plants
and celestial symbols (Ratana church references, Christian crosses, pg. 15), as well
as animals, portraits, and scenes from everyday life. For six years, Cotton has been
“re-interpreting” Ringatu figurative plant paintings of the Rongopai meeting house
built near Waituhi near Gisborne in 1886”. He is symbolically and metaphorically
commenting on the replacement of customary Maori art and craft (carving, weaving,
tukutuku, etc.) with European art making materials, and the loss of those skills in
that generation of people, as there were no older people to pass on the skills to the
younger ones (rangatahi). When the Christian missionaries arrived, they assumed
their art forms were heathen, or evil, and felt it necessary to replace them with
European art forms. Shane Cotton feels that this is a small but significant example
of the detrimental effects of colonisation of the Maori by Europeans, and uses it to
illustrate his feelings about this issue. YET, he is now using oil paint on canvas, a
European fine art tradition, and speaking in this contemporary medium in a Western
context (galleries, dealers, exchanging money for his paintings). You are free to
make comment on this in questions 3 and 4.
o Plants: represent the mana and bounty of Maori land. The containment in
pots symbolises the division and control of land through legislation and
surveying. This speaks of “the confiscation, division and containment of
Maori land by the Government”.
o The “Native Lands Act” of 1865: This act created individualisation of
Maori land, which attempted to destroy the communal basis of Maori life. This
act broke up the communal ownership of large areas of land, which made it
much easier for the Europeans to acquire or buy land who wanted to farm
there. He references this through the use of the grid in his compositions, and
the “topographical painting style” used by the artists who travelled with
Captain Cook. These artists were used as a way of identifying the profile of
the landscape, for instance significant mountains or horizons, so that when
they came back later, they could prove that they were there “first” (other
European competitors, like the Dutch or French were also in pursuit of
colonising New Zealand). In actual fact the Maoriori were there “first”, even
before the Maori. Shane Cotton’s paintings urge the viewer to examine issues
of ownership of land.
o Gang Patches: this refers to the “new tribalism” that many Maori turn to for
a sense of belonging, and an urge to be warriors. It is a European construct,
but has been primarily taken over by Maori, eg Black Power, Mongrel Mob.
Also, Cotton is commenting on the Maori’s lack of awareness about the
reasons they choose to be members of a gang.
o Customary Maori Images: Headless tiki, moko patterns, Kupu Whakari
(proverbs), architectural structures of wharenui, korero (Maori words), etc.
(details about this can be found on pg. 16/17, attached), Cotton references
rangatira (chiefs), his turangawaewae (home) in Northland, tribal
commitments to his iwi, tupuna and his whakapapa (anscestors),etc. He is
making reference to these to illustrate his search for his origins and his
journey of self-discovery, as well as an expression of tribal narratives.
(Written by, Dr. Deidre Brown, lecturer in Art History
at the University of Canterbury, 1997).