Black sculptures

Black sculptures

He takirua. I āta tāreitia ngā āhuatanga hei takirua. Kua pipī ake, ā, he porotaka te āhua o ia tāreitanga. He rite ngā hanganga nei ki ngā pou ririki, arā, he tapaono, he poutū tonu. Kei ngā hope te teiteitanga, ā, ko ngā pito roa e anga whakarunga ana, hei whakapakari. He tūturu tonu te hono i runga anō i ngā inenga, ā, he whakamaumahara: he poro rākau, ko te pūtake o te rākau, he pou taiepa, ko te tuara o te nōhanga, he māhuri, he tupu pāpaku, he tamaiti.

He koi ngā tapa o tā Hotere Black sculptures, ā, kua tino whakapīataatahia ngā mata. Kua rehua, kua pania te rino i whakaritea, ki te pani whakamaene ka whakamahia i ngā ahumahi hanga waka. Kua whakamāeneenehia kia tino pīataata mai ngā mata. Ka tauwhitiwhiti ngā kano pango, rau kākāriki me te pākurakura hoki, i ngā pae e kitea ana, arā, he kano o taiao. I hangaia, i āta whakahuatautia, ā, he tūāpapa tapatahi. Ka tauwhitiwhiti ngā papa whai kano ki ngā rārangi i ngā papa pango. E ai ki tā te toikupu, ki tā Gregory O’Brien, ko ngā rārangi poutū e mea ana, “he hanga rākau, he hanga pata ua, he tūrama ka paheke.”

He hōhonu, he ikeike, he uara pū tonu te uriuri o tā Hotere Black Sculptures. E ai ki tā te toikupu, ki tā Hone Tuwhare, “ko te kairuru o te kamo”, te kano uriuri a te ringatoi, “e tiro whakaroto ana mā runga ki muri”, hana kamo. Ko te tauarotanga tūturu o te uriuritanga e whakakauruku ana, e whakaata hoki ana. Ko ngā papātanga o ngā mata o ngā tāreitanga e whakaata ana i ngā kano tūramarama me ngā ātārangi hoki o te hunga e tāmau atu ana, nā konei panoni ai ngā āhua i te hunga e tūtaki atu ana.


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To be two. This is a pair of sculpted elements arranged in proximity. Each is composed of mass, made geometric. Almost columns, cuboid, these precise forms resemble mini-monoliths. Hip-height, their elongation points towards verticality, a sense of the upright. Their dimensions makes association inevitable, they might recall: severed tree trunks, a stump, a fence post, the back of a chair, a sapling, a modest shrub, a child.

Hotere’s Black sculptures have sharp edges, their surfaces are highly-polished. Prepared steel has been sprayed and painted with lacquer usually used in the automotive industry. This has then been polished to create a smooth and high-gloss surface. The visible planes alternate between black, dark-leafy-green and fiery crimson, hues taken from the natural environment. Fabricated and extremely refined, these works deal in fundamentals. There is an alternation between blocks of colour and finely painted lines on black surfaces. For poet Gregory O’Brien the vertical lines suggest “the forms of trees, raindrops and falling light.”(1)

The blackness of Hotere’s Black Sculptures is profound, inscrutable and absolute. Poet Hone Tuwhare wrote that the artist’s black is “a visual kind of starvation” causing his eyeballs to “Roll up and over to peer inside/Myself.”(2) Paradoxically, this particular treatment of black makes it both absorptive and reflective. The surface-effects of these sculptures involve the reflection of sources of light as well as the moving shadows of those who behold them, thus their appearance is altered by those who encounter them.

(1) Gregory O’Brien, “Small holes in the silence’ Hotere & Hone Tuwhare” in Hotere Out the Black Window: Ralph Hotere’s work with New Zealand poets. Edited by Gregory O’Brien. Auckland: Godwit Publishing, 1997. 85.

(2) Hone Tuwhare “Hotere” in O’Brien, 1997. 84.

— Victoria Wynne-Jones, 2024