item details
NameGenealogy III
ProductionGordon Walters; artist; 1971; Auckland
Classificationpaintings
Materialsacrylic paint, polyvinyl acetate, canvas
Materials Summaryacrylic and PVA paint on canvas
DimensionsImage: 1370mm (width), 1830mm (height), 39mm (depth)
Registration Number1993-0033-1
Credit linePurchased 1993 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds
Overview
Genealogy III is one of Gordon Walters’ ‘koru’ paintings – the focus of his art for decades. Walters, a ākehā New Zealander, transforms this indigenous, organic motif – a symbol of new life – into a geometric interplay of black and white, line and circle.
This pairing of the organic with the abstract was Walters’ response to the ‘dilemma of what to paint in New Zealand’. He was among the first New Zealand painters to embrace modernist abstraction, with its emphasis on simplified forms. He described his work as ‘an investigation of positive/negative relationships within a deliberately limited range of forms’.
Walters’ work continues to influence contemporary artists, European and Māori alike.