Shane Cotton with his exhibition, Te Puāwai. Photo: Elias Rodriguez
Installation view. Photo: Elias Rodriguez
Installation view. Photo: Elias Rodriguez
Shane Cotton, Te Puāwai (detail), 2020. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Elias Rodriguez
Installation view. Photo: Elias Rodriguez
Shane Cotton, Gesture, 2021. Courtesy of the artist
There is something nascent in Cotton’s new works, a sense of transition and journey playing out across the different surfaces and structures: paintings; a boat; lengths of kauri like pou adorned with plant life, floating against subtle spectrums of rainbow colour. The works seem permanently suspended on the cusp of transformation, and on the boundary between the living and the dead. This suspension comes from a growing freedom in Cotton’s painting process; a faith that meaningful forms will arrive as he feels his way towards images that perpetually embody the consequences of Aotearoa’s explosive moment. These are modern objects, full of scrambled information, always emerging from the black hole. - Anthony Byrt, July 2021
A major exhibition of new work by leading contemporary artist Shane Cotton (Ngāti Rangi, Ngāti Hine, Te Uri Taniwha) – the first public show in the place he was raised, Te Awakairangi Hutt Valley.
In a suite of brand new works, Cotton brings together toi moko, manaia, native birds and sailing ships to animate questions about history, culture and identity that reverberate from Aotearoa’s pre-human past right to the present.