Nova Paul
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1973
Ngāpuhi,
Te Uriroroi,
Te Parawhau,
Te Māhurehure ki Whatitiri,
Māori
Still Light
- 2015
- 16mm film transferred to digital video, colour, sound, duration 6 min 35 sec
- Purchased 2020
- 2020/039
Tags: automobiles, beds (furniture), birds (animals), books, bowls (vessels), cages (rooms), candles, chairs (furniture forms), clothes lines, clothing, drinking glasses, driveways, faucets (finish hardware), fences, flowerpots, flowers (plants), food, fruit, furniture, grass (plant material), interior, jugs (vessels), kitchens, laundry baskets, lawns (landscaped grass), lemon (fruit), mats (furniture coverings), plates (dishes), shadows, tables (support furniture), tea strainers, teapots, toys (recreational artifacts), trees, vases, watering cans, wind (weather phenomena), windows
Commissioned as a response to an untitled poem from the collection "Like Love Poems" by artist Joanna Margaret Paul, Nova Paul’s "Still Light" is a beautiful reflection on the domestic and intimate. Shot in 16mm film, the camera traces around objects and watches light shift across the surfaces, creating fluctuations in colour and flickering shadow. A fittingly tender soundtrack is provided by Nova's friend and sometime collaborator Bic Runga.
The room is close with mystery
this morning
heavy green folds of velvet curtain
are patterned with light
the sky breaks in panes of almost blue
& casts a white mirage upon the
ceiling
mirror filled with things
the white dove-cote outhouse
received from another window
with its dark apertures
a mound of sunlit ivy
a light blue room
caught, held in the
round lid of some vessel
open on the dressing table.
Or so the room seems to be
heavy & punctuated with mystery
in the early stillness & I would
drift out & put on the room, the day
a close & heavy garment
for my pregnancy,
but the obdurate shape by my side
prevents my peaceful
mingling with the folded curtain & the light
the mirror the window the pale day…
Extract from an untitled poem, published in Joanna Margaret Paul, "Like Love Poems: Selected Poems" (edited by Bernadette Hall, Victoria University Press, 2006, pp.30–31).
Online Spheres, 2020