T Ā N E II Tropical Garden, 2023, TĀNE MOTUMOTU exhibition

This painting was part of a small body of work for the show Tāne Motumotu 'Tāne cut-off' where I began to explore eco-printing leaves from my personal garden (and in the case of the whau leaf work from the local Mt Albert Library garden). All native trees were important to our ancestors I believe that ngā rau 'the leaves' carry as much of an imprint of the personality of the tree. I work with water based printing inks, leaf impressions, and I use the brayer as the carrier of the image and the creator of the trunk and stem or tinana 'body' and peka 'branch' that creates the link between the leaves. Building the composition up I eventually create the impression of ngahere 'bush'. That's the vision and this particular work represents my own personal collection of sub-tropicals that I grow. The incident in the composition is one I actually witnessed in my backyard. I was annoyed that the flowers in my banana grove were continually being scattered across the lawn. I discovered one day by accident that the culprits were native tui that were feeding on the nectar of the banana flowers and ruining their chances of fruiting through the summer.