Keeping Time
23 May - 31 August 2008
Touring Exhibition Gallery B
Denis O'Connor , The Gorse King (detail), 1990-1991. Maheno limestone painted with yellow ochre lime wash. Collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery. Commissioned 1990.
“There is no past, present or future. Using tenses to divide time is like making chalk marks on water”
Janet Frame, Faces in the Water, 1961
Exploring the moment when past and present collide, the works in Keeping Time affirm the power of history and memory to elude the rules of strict chronology and demonstrate how the past seeps into our present lives to frame and colour our experience of the world.
Taking centre stage is Denis O’Connor’s monumental limestone sculpture The Gorse King. This 33-piece, semi-autobiographical work brings together an intriguing group of objects including classical columns, beehives, railway tracks, a sundial and a fragmented kneeling figure. With them, O’Connor uncovers a rich seam of densely layered imagery, from childhood memories and the Central Otago landscape to ancient history and twentieth century art.
Also included in the exhibition are five Marian Maguire lithographs playfully re-imagining Captain Cook’s first encounters with Māori, Michael Shepherd’s Dead Letter Mail, a series of painted envelopes ‘posted’ from the past to enigmatic and elusive addresses, and William Dunning’s waxwork-like Colonization Triptych, in which Giovanni Bellini’s 15th century Transfiguration of Christ, is transformed into a tableau of significant moments in Māori/Pākehā history.
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