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Indepth Arts News:
"Face to Face: Self portraits by New Zealand artists"
1999-10-01 until 2000-01-16
Auckland Art Gallery
Auckland, ,
NZ New Zealand (Aotearoa)
Face to Face
Self portraits by New Zealand artists in
the Auckland Art Gallery collection
Main Gallery - Gallery 4
from 1 October 1999 - 16 January 2000
A self portrait may be as
straightforward as a
documentation of one’s physical
appearance or as complex as a
search for self identity using
one’s own image. The self
portraits by New Zealand artists
in the exhibition Face to Face
reflect the diversity of approach
to the genre, suturing the viewer
into the intriguing and often
complicated realm of
self-representation. Images by
artists as distinct as Frances
Hodgkins, Colin McCahon, Lois
White, Tony Fomison and Peter
Peryer are featured and
contrasted, each of them relaying
a unique personal narrative.
The images in Face to Face
contradict the common viewer
expectation that self portraits
should present at the very least, a visual likeness of the artist. Works such
as Frances Hodgkins’ Self Portrait Still Life c.1935 demonstrate that a
self portrait may in fact bear no resemblance to its maker whatsoever, yet
may still reveal much about the artist’s identity and psychological make-up.
Hodgkins’ painting exemplifies a non-figurative approach to
self-representation, operating as an inventive fusion of the genres of
portraiture and still life. The artist depicts an assemblage of personal
belongings in place of her physical presence, suggesting in her choice of
objects - from a dainty pink shoe to some decorative scarves - a feminine
and perhaps even narcissistic aspect of her nature.
A completely different
conception of self is
portrayed by painter
Tony Fomison in his
Self portrait 1977,
which presents the
artist as a peeping
Tom, peering darkly at
the viewer through the
real glass of a real
window frame from a
Ponsonby villa.
Although at first
glance a menacing
image, careful
observation brings
other associations to
the work, such as the
idea that the artist perceives himself as an outsider, marginalised on the
periphery of mainstream society. There is also the rather unsettling
revelation that perhaps we, the audience, are in fact the ones on the outside
looking in, with Fomison the target of our curious gaze.
Taking an alternative approach yet again is the artist Colin McCahon, who
integrates his own image into a scene derived from a Biblical episode
featuring the apostle Paul. The painting, I Paul to You at Ngatimote was
executed in 1946, when McCahon began to depict religious events in the
New Zealand landscape in order to render their moral messages more
accessible the local audience. McCahon felt a humanitarian concern for
New Zealanders in the aftermath of World War II and in this painting his
self portrait appears behind the figure of Paul, who presents a message on a
scroll to the people of Ngatimoti, Nelson, against a warzone backdrop of
barbed wire and an overhead aeroplane.
Face to Face brings together an array of fascinating works which
visualise the artist-self across the spectrum of representational codes,
from the transcriber of nature to the master of masquerade, from the
prophetic visionary to the vulnerable victim.
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