item details
NameReach
ProductionShane Cotton; artist; 2012; Palmerston North
Classificationacrylic painting
Materialsacrylic paint, canvas
Materials Summaryacrylic on canvas
DimensionsImage: 505mm (width), 505mm (height)
Registration Number2012-0024-1
Credit linePurchased 2012
Overview
In Reach, Shane Cotton acknowledges the revolutionary work of the first generation of Māori modernists, whose legacy he has inherited.
Modernism changed the face of Māori art forever. Cotton believes that its impact has been as profound as the introduction of European muskets to intertribal warfare in the early 1800s.
A self-confessed ‘magpie’, Cotton has borrowed the green form in this work from Paratene Matchitt’s painting Whiti te ra. Taking a surrealist approach, he has juxtaposed it with a white-painted statue of the Virgin Mary. The resulting associations are rich and ambiguous.