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Indepth Arts News:
"Niki Hastings-McFall: Polynisation"
2005-06-21 until 2005-07-17
Bartley Nees Gallery
Wellington, ,
NZ New Zealand (Aotearoa)
At Bartley Nees in New Zealand, suggestions of colonisation and pollination abound in Niki Hastings-McFall's boundary pushing new exhibition/installation which is abloom with ideas about the spread of culture and the riotous vitality with which Polynesian peoples have responded to life in New Zealand. The gallery has had a great response to Niki's large work Parataiso II in their Blair Street opening exhibition. In her new show, the first solo show in the new gallery location, Niki, who started her career as a jeweller, takes another major step forward with her work moving off the wall to more fully occupy the gallery space.
Artist Niki Hastings-McFall has been increasingly driven by research into her Pacific Island heritage since meeting with her Samoan father for the first time in 1992. Trained as a jeweller, Hastings-McFall has been working recently on larger installation pieces and what she terms 'mixed media assemblages', that nonetheless retain the delicacy and exquisite detailing of her jewellery.
Her work explores what it means to be a New Zealander of Pacific Island descent living in the urban environment of the 21st century. Manipulating the very materials of that urban environment and juxtaposing commodity with traditional Pacific form Hastings-McFall offers us a melting pot of cultural messages and symbols.
Using material as diverse as plastic sushi fish, reflective roadsign vinyl, artificial lei and lightboxes Hastings-McFall explores ideas of the urban pacific, christianity and colonialism.
IMAGE
Niki Hastings-McFall
blowhole at anawhata
Year: 2003
Media: framed print and lei (tracing paper and shell)
Size: 700 x 400 mm
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