Red flag

This brooch was made by Jason Hall in 2004. It is created from sterling silver coated in red paint. Red Flag is part of a series of four flag brooches, each of which is coloured either black, white, red, or blue. The flag brooches relate closely to The Gate Between series, also made of sterling silver coated with paint, and, like The Gate Between, they are based on found patterns taken from reproduction wrought-iron gates commonly found in suburbs around New Zealand.

Symbols of identity
Red Flag is coated with the ochre paint from the official Aalto Māori colour range. This is one of the ways that Hall establishes a link between the Flag series and Māori kōwhaiwhai (scroll painting, typically on rafters of meeting houses) patterns. Hall's work sets up an interaction between the Union Jack flag and kōwhaiwhai - both of which were emblems of identity for Pākehā and Māori respectively in the nineteenth century.

Black and blue
The flag brooches were first shown in Jason Hall: Ornaments for the Pākehā, an exhibition of Hall's jewellery that opened at Pataka, Porirua in 2004. Hall exhibited a flag brooch painted black and blue, as well as the four flags painted black, white, red, and blue. As Damian Skinner writes in the catalogue, 'If you take the black, red and white of kowhaiwhai patterns and put them alongside the red, white and blue of the Union Jack, the colours that are different (black and blue) are the words we choose to describe the outcome of a good beating.'

The flag brooches are an example of Hall's close observation of cultural forms, and his wit in observing the differences that speak to larger cultural issues. As Skinner continues, 'Black and blue is a pretty good description of the state of contemporary Pākehā identity, which has suffered a number of blows in the culture wars of the last two decades.'