 |
 |
| Matakana Pictures Exhibitions Artists |
|
Solstice: 4.June - 6.August 2005 Sheephead - Forest / Green Desert - Dead Lamb The work presented here forms part of an enquiry designed to question our traditional ideas of land use in New Zealand. My personal view is that New Zealand is an over grazed, deforested and eroding landscape. The images shown are all taken in Central Otago, part of the country very familiar to me. By the use of juxtaposition of place and scale, I wish the viewer to question the notion of New Zealand as a “Clean Green Paradise”, which I believe to be mythic notion, long established and reinforced by advertising and in the sublime vistas portrayed in films such as the historic This is New Zealand, and more recently, The Lord of the Rings. The alternative vision I hope to offer here is that in actual fact New Zealand is a kind of Green Desert. I use the sheep as a colonial, religious and industrial metaphor to establish a dialogue between the viewer and the landscape in the hope that they will see the environment in a more realistic way. In New Zealand we use language such as “the fat of the land” and farming being “the backbone of the economy”. This may be true, but to me these are terms indicative of our cavalier attitude to land use. The rivers are polluted with farm run-off and fertiliser - deforestation and erosion from overgrazing causes millions of tonnes of topsoil to flow into the sea every year. Our only saving grace is that we are lucky there are not more people living here in “Godzone”. |
 |
John Collie 27 Green Desert-Dead Lamb |
|