Adele Dubarry
Shared Lines: Pūtahitanga exhibiting artist
Vacationing - mixed media on paper, 30x30cm
Tropical Holiday - mixed media on paper, 30x30cm
My work explores the connection to place that we have and what it means in the Covid-19 world and in particular in New Zealand. At the moment we are doing well compared to the rest of the world with respect to containing a pandemic – but what does it mean for those of us who have spent a life abroad in other lands perhaps with family still there, and are now living in this land? Does it mean something different?
For some of us it is the re-discovery of what the mountains and the rivers and the wind and the rain feel like, what it means to be connected to New Zealand’s landscape, and the peace and healing that only a connection to the earth can bring.
Shared Lines: Pūtahitanga 2020
I thought a lot about the many layers of history that make up a landscape when I created this work. People too have many layers and complexities to their histories and their stories, and for some there have been recent unsettling changes in their lives. I wonder whether partly it is the consistency of the landscape that attracts us to being outside. By this I mean that it is steady and it is always there - although weather events might change it a little - the river flows more widely now, or takes a bit of a different turn, but it is always there. The mountain is there always in eyesight, though some days the clouds obscure it. There is a reason we choose usually to holiday or take time out in a place where we can be outside most of the time. It is this connection to the earth that we need.