Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery

In the Valley

Brett Graham

Fred Graham

Ralph Hotere

Ronnie van Hout

Robert Jahnke

Colin McCahon

Ava Seymour

Gordon Walters

An exhibition developed by Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery from the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection

01 October – 12 December 2021

In October 2021 Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery was pleased to present eight important works from the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection especially chosen for Whirinaki Whare Taonga as an opportunity for local audiences to see works by some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading artists first hand. As a university gallery we are committed to helping audiences appreciate the history of art as it has unfolded in this country. Thus, we selected four works by leading artists of the modern period (1930–1970): Fred Graham, Ralph Hotere, Colin McCahon, and Gordon Walters, who are recognised for the ways they have responded to their surroundings and to their distinct but intertwined cultural inheritances, thus contributing to the evolution of modern art in ways that are uniquely of this place. To be ‘modern’ in their terms was to turn away from description, to find a formal and material language that gave new shape to ideas, beliefs and narratives, to tap a deep store of cultural symbols, and to convey convictions and hopes that mere pictures cannot capture.These four artists are juxtaposed with four works by artists of newer generations, who have grown up alongside and after their forebears. Brett Graham, Robert Jahnke, Ava Seymour and Ronnie van Hout are familiar with their history and choose to build upon it, to add to the conversation about those self-same beliefs and values, but now with a critical intention to expand and complicate what has come before them. They are exemplary of contemporary art: that is the art of our present.Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington’s Art Collection consists of more than 600 art works in all media, that have been collected since the 1940s for the benefit of staff, students and the wider public in the belief that art not only enhances the physical appearance of the campus but adds a creative dimension to the learning experience that allows other ways of knowing to co-exist alongside the rational and objective.

exhibition installation image, sculpture, paintings, Colin McCahon, Fred Graham, Gordon Walters, Ralph Hotere, Brett Graham

Installation view of In the Valley: An exhibition developed by Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery from the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, Whirinaki Whare Taonga, Upper Hutt, 2021. Photo: Ted Whitaker.

Ronnie VAN HOUT, In the Valley of Dry Bones, 1993, Sepia-toned photograph, skull, head, speech bubbles

Ronnie Van Hout, In the Valley of Dry Bones, 1993, Sepia-toned photograph, 749 x 889 mm, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, commissioned 1993

Installation view of 'In the Valley' an exhibition

Robert Jahnke, Cogito Ergo Sum (ITHINKTHEREFORE IAM), 2010, lacquer on stainless steel, artwork

Robert Jahnke, Cogito Ergo Sum (ITHINKTHEREFORE IAM), 2010, lacquer on stainless steel, 1000 x 1000 x 30mm, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, gift of Grant and Pauline Guilford, 2018

Colin McCahon, Agnus Dei, Donna Nobis Pacem, 1966, oil on canvas on board, 1665 x 905 mm, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, purchased 1968. Reproduced courtesy of the Colin McCahon Research and Publication Trust.

Gordon Walters, Kahukura, 1968, acrylic and pva on canvas, koru, abstraction

Gordon Walters, Kahukura, 1968, acrylic and pva on canvas, 1138 x 1523 mm, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, purchased 1969

Ralph Hotere, Song cycle The voyage, 1975, acrylic and dyes on unstretched canvas, 3050 x 900 mm, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, purchased 1977

Brett Graham, Rawhiti, 2014, carved beechwood, gold leaf, sculpture

Brett Graham, Rawhiti, 2014, carved beechwood, gold leaf, 1500 x 825 x 250mm, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, commissioned 2014