Mailbox 02: Caitlin Rose Donnelly
House Paddock
From Buy MY Grass Series in Te Hauka Te Ahi exhibition
Grass + Uku Pigments
Photograph Courtesy of Justin Spiers
House Paddock is part of a series of six works called Buy MY Grass, all made from grass and uku pigments from the whenua which the artist lives.
There is irony in the title as the artist has taken grass grown on a farm in pākehā ownership to sell.
The poem that is spread across the works concerns her placement amid these worlds, past, present, Māori and Pākehā.
These works are on display at Olga Gallery in Ōtepoti in an exhibition Te Hauka Te Ahi alongside works by Allison Beck. These artists are from the same tīpuna from Rakiura and Aparima.
Te Hauka Te Ahi. As adoptees we miss opportunities to know our whānau. Te hauka te ahi, meaning ‘the stranger who stays longer gets to know the host better’ is pertinent for us. This exhibition explores some of the whakaaro around finding your whakapapa and connecting with whānau and whenua. We are celebrating who we are, proudly saying we are Māori.
Caitlin Rose Donnelly (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Pākehā) is a multidisciplinary artist based in rural Southland with her husband and two children. Her practice analyses being Māori, an adoptee, a mother, and a woman in traditionally male spaces. The whakataukī Ka mua, ka muri, meaning we must look to the past to inform the future, centres her whakaaro and mahi toi. She works for Paemanu Ngāi Tahu Contemporary Visual Arts Charitable Trust and her husband’s farming business. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Dunedin School of Art.
You can find out more about her and her art practice here: https://www.instagram.com/caitlin_rose_d_art
