04/12/06 - Artist Talk: Micheal Parekowhai

• He is a tutor in an Art School
• He feels that art is about empowering people and him
• The system about being an artist is a question to him
• To him, art is not about personal expression
­ He doesn’t care about what the viewer think
­ He said: “It is more about you then me.”

The indefinite article (1990)



• The idea of “I am” is from a New Zealand painter, Colin McCahon, who is also a tutor in school.
- This artist mainly does text base painting and the word ‘I am’ usually dominates his painting (see example below)



Colin McCahon, A question of faith 1970. Private collection, California, USA .


• The word ‘He’ has indefinite meaning in Maori language
­ It can mean ‘a’ or ‘some’

• To Michael, in English, ‘I am he’ is a macho statement
­ Relationship to who he think he is

• Michael feels that the viewer is significant
­ Communication has to go on between the viewer and the work
­ He also feels that “If the work excites you, that’s enough!”

• Works that are exhibited over here are his older works
­ They play with the idea of how he can be fitted into the art world
­ He feels that museums have a tendency to categorize artists into groups

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The picture below shows another piece of interesting work of Michael that was not mentioned in his talk.

Kiss the baby goodbye (1994)



This work resembles an oversized kitset toy. It is a reference to Kahukura, 1968, a painting by Gordon Walters (see picture below), one of New Zealand's most celebrated artist. Ironically, this piece of work is also exhibited in APT 5 and it is placed not far from Michael's work.



The repeated pattern that we see in these two works is based on the traditional Maori koru (fern motif).
The only difference between both work is the colour and a full stop at the bottom right hand corner of Michael's work. "enough has been said" (quoted from the description on the wall)


***** I don't really understand what Micheal really means by that. But I think that it is more of a homage to Walter's painting then a critique to it. *****