Maori artist embarks upon Australian Walkabout

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Maori artist embarks upon Australian Walkabout

In a momentous meeting of trans-Tasman Indigeneity, Maori artist Star Gossage departed home and comfort to experience life in an Aboriginal settlement, seven uncomfortable hours drive from Darwin.

The paintings that Gossage has created as a result of this cultural relocation will be on show in Wellington’s Page Blackie Gallery this month in an exhibition named after the settlement in Australia, Minyerri. Gossage made the journey across the monumental landscape to visit her sister, who has been teaching in Minyerri. The reports of the purity of life enticed the Pakiri-based artist, whose paintings have always depicted core human emotions: love, kindness and support. But entry to the settlement was not without effort. Apart from the arduous journey, no non-Aboriginal can enter Minyerri without a permit.

However, the journey was worth it; Gossage says of her experience: “it was great to experience really honest, simple life, where the people have a strong understanding of the value of the earth and their surroundings and, most importantly, each other”.

Gossage’s work is represented in major museums and art galleries in New Zealand and she has exhibited and worked internationally, including in Spain, Rarotonga and Australia, but she has never immersed herself as deeply in another culture’s way of life as her experience in Minyerri.

The paintings in her Wellington exhibition contain universal themes, where Gossage links the key principles in Aboriginal and Maori family life: strong images of community, children at play and parents and grandparents minding mokopuna. These images are further emphasised by her paintings’ titles: My Skin, Born a Mother, Aunty, Sister, Grandmother, or, Walk My Grandmother’s Line.

Star’s time in the community exposed the artist to issues related to public policy and Indigenous affairs.

Concerns regarding the complex act of balancing cultural sensitivity with the provision of economic opportunity and education in its Western context provided Star with a fascinating position of crosscultural objectivity in considering Indigenous issues.

Accordingly, it is surprisingly refreshing that Star’s paintings do not dwell on the challenges associated with the community: the eighty-five percent unemployment rate, the provision of funding and welfare, methods of governance, but rather, they focus on the intimate and interpersonal relationships she observed in community life. Star’s experience at Minyerri showed her that difficult cross-cultural issues exist the world over.

But at the same time, it revealed a culture that is vibrant and multifaceted, and respects equally valid values as Maori culture in Aotearoa. Background: Star Gossage is represented in major national collections including Te Papa Tongarewa and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and has exhibited in Wellington since 2003. Originally trained as a film maker, Gossage is an accomplished playwright, theatre and film director and painter.

Minyerri runs at Page Blackie Gallery from 2 – 15 November 2010.

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