Home Farm Series
Place
I was born in Aotearoa New Zealand at the bottom of the South Island. I grew up on the family farm in the hills above the Mataura River.
Our view from the back paddock was across green rolling hills to the silhouette of Bluff hill and then beyond to the soft outline of Rakiura, Stewart Island to the south.
Perhaps this is why I have always loved the layering of lines in the landscape leading the viewer further and further into the distance, to a view not yet discernible.
Memory
Like our memories of place the prints are constructed in layers but here it is the stencils that take on a life of their own depending on the previous image for colour, pattern and shape capturing a feeling rather than a personal experience.
Pattern
Elements are layered and repeated to represent the rural Southland landscape and the people who live there.
Starting with a photo depicting 3 generations of my family down at what we always referred to as “the sheds” this project explores the multigenerational nature of life in rural New Zealand and the practice of passing the farm on to the next generation.
Changes
The farm I remember is no longer in my family and there have been many changes since.
What I recall is no longer physically there but is a part of me and in my heart the connection holds.
