TUÌ CHORUS
How do you translate an auditory experience into a painting?
Sunrise Hymnal
TUÌ CHORUS, Triptych, Oil on canvas, 36x54”
Focus - on every next step....
My eyes adjust to the dim light on the lower track of Mt Holdsworth and I don’t want to lose footing. I hit a good pace, racing the rising sun. I’m in the dark of the bush for a while.. as gentle light aids my sight, I know I won’t make the Hut for sunrise. I will be in the trees. I keep my pace.
A distinct tui trill rises into treetops growing into song. The call bounces through the bush and dissolves my solitude. From a remote height in the distance, a response rings out. The initiating bird repeats his song, clear and strong. Another calls back in repetition. From every direction, from every dimension, the chorus grows in voice and volume, a Sunrise Forum. The roundtable of tui lifts a unified voice as council. Their song envelops the forest and in it, me.
Interloper and witness to dawn’s chorus, I hold my breath so as not to disrupt or maybe to hide myself. The chorus fades into a gentle banter of smaller bush birds, the song still reverberates. Persistent light pushes through the thickest cover, giving shape to shadows as night gives way t the Sun.
I remain shaken, affected.
Is this sunrise hymnal a daily ritual? Do the songs change? What divine rite had I stumbled into? How do I paint such a visceral auditory experience?
How do I share this?
Ngawi
acrylic on paper, 47x70”
It’s common for an artist to speed past their best ideas. In NZ there are very few place to pull over to the side of the road that don’t involve ditches. Zipping along a windy tight road with erosion spills on one side and the ocean cliff on the other, the steep mountain side rising above of Ngawi burn themselves into my vision-memory. I make the trip three more times before I find the perfect sandy turnoff at the right time of day to get the drawing I wanted.
The fishing village seems dwarfed, inconsequential. I transcribe the houses as small neutral dashes between the cliffs and the ocean.
Man attempts to settle land, but truly, it is land that settles man, allows us to be here until it is time for the earth to move again. We small creatures must move fast enough to adjust.
Tararua Range as Ocean
acrylic on paper, 47x52”
Clouds, mist, mountain ranges and rolling hills all flow together- the “Landscape” as continual movement and tides of the ocean.
The rich growth and lush greens of New Zealand’s rainy winter emulates the greens of the ocean. The pitted hills create a visual rhythm the leads you into the mountains beyond. The heavy mists and fog of the sky toy with the space between Heaven and Earth. This piece is a visual dance.
Looking Out from Te Mata Peak (Rays of Sunshine) , acrylic on paper, 40x47"
Acrylic on paper, 40x47”
Looking Out from Te Mata Peak, NZ
There is a visual quality of liquid in the mountains and hills, as if they may alter shape at any moment, move to their own tides, flow away as you blink. A long drive through hypnotically repetitive and symmetrical hills of Hawke’s Bay cements this idea of hills as water. On that hottest of days.. I spend only enough time by the oceanside to map out a way to a mountain. I make it to the top of Te Mata Peak and look out over another type of ocean, one of stone, soil and sand...crashing waves, rolling tides frozen in the hills but alive just the same.