Marian Maguire's 'The odyssey of Captain Cook'

Marian Maguire's set of ten lithographs 'The Odyssey of Captain Cook' depicts the actual arrival of Captain Cook in New Zealand alongside the imagining of him bringing Classical Greek culture. A fictional background is then set for the meeting of the ancient Greeks and Māori. Maguire stages a postmodern revisionist look at Aotearoa's history.  Maguire's re-imagining of this part of Aotearoa's history results in a juxtaposition between the Ancient Greeks, English explorers and Māori. She has sourced the imagery from both European artists of Cook's era such as Sydney Parkinson and varied depictions on Classical Greek urns.

This work acts as a tricultural re-imagining of a bicultural exchange. The reconfigured first contacts between British and tangata whenua to include Greek characters from classical urns follow on from Maguire's 2001-2003 suite of etchings, 'Southern Myths' which explored Homer's The Iliad and the some of the shared experiences of humanity - conflict, war, encounters and journey.