80cm square acrylic and mixed media on wooden panel
Artist Statement
Inspired by the book The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook
“Most of the voices we hear on Pacific are indigenous and for me that’s important. The other side has been told so often – it’s so familiar. Cook comes along and plants a flag followed by all the benefits of European settlement. In the end it wasn’t just that he changed the Pacific… the Pacific also changed him. He became a man of the Pacific.” Sam Neill
Using exaggerated stylization faces appear in totem-like stillness to present an idealised portrait of island life. Evoking a feeling of lost and found, the masks may be remnants of a life that was lived. In reality the people of the Pacific are in imminent danger of losing their island habitat to rising seawater levels and mountains of floating plastic rubbish.
Part of a series inspired by and painted on board Sailing Boat “Island Girl”
H2O OCEAN, BEACH ,HARBOUR ,COVE how we live by the sea.
