Mystery Maps

Spring Seminar September 2021

Mystery Maps

Navigations, 400mm x 300mm.

Magnetic energy fields in the atmosphere are used as geolocators by migratory birds. Unlike humans, the Kūaka (Bar-tailed Godwit) can see and follow these patterns as they fly from the Firth of Thames in Aotearoa to Alaska, their traditional breeding grounds. It is the longest migration flight of any bird in the world (12,000kms) and takes between 8-11 days to complete. Once started, they are committed. They do not rest until they reach their destination. Because they don’t breed in Aotearoa, for Māori Kūaka have been seen as a source of mystery. ‘Kua kite te kohanga Kūaka? Who has seen the nest of the Kūaka?’. For this reason it was believed that they accompany the spirits of the departed.

Untitled 1; 1200mm x 600mm.

The mineral magnetite is found in bird beaks and their eyes have a protein called crypotochrome. Together they work as geolocators to detect magnetic energy fields. The flight of the Godwit appears as a beak-like form. These new motifs move through time and space yet may also suggest limestone landscapes.

Untitled 2; 660mm x 480mm.

Magnetic surveying enables humans to understand the archaeological layers lying beneath the earth in limestone. The sedimentary layers are made from fossils and untold stories of life and death. These ideas are described using charcoal and layers of glazed paint.

Untitled 3, 810mm x 620mm.

Limestone might also be described as rhizomic. Impacted by unseen energies of time, pressure and water. It can map itself across new environments, adapt, disrupt and change. There is no beginning and no end but multiple entry points.

Networks and connections feature as symbols of rhizomic thinking and interconnectedness. Subterranean mycelium fungal networks facilitate trees to communicate with each other, and magnetic energy fields create networks that birds can see and use.

Untitled 4, 1200mm x 660mm.

As applied to painting, Deleuze and Guattari writing in A Thousand Plateaus observe, “as in all things, there are lines of articulation segmentarity, strata and territories; but also lines of flight, movement deterritorialisation and destratification.”

American/Ethiopian artist Julie Mehretu has described her paintings as “story maps of no location” and this resonates with my own thinking and making.

All the works are made with ink, charcoal and acrylic paint on rock stock paper.