Sheep may safely graze

A series of coincidences led me to being emailed an fantastic photograph this week from artist Bruce Mahalski. This photo was a finalist in a competition that Te Papa had a few years back to promote a show of Magnum photographers. It looks great when blown up.

The Happy Couple- Bruce Mahalski

Apart from the sheep masks (made of fibreglass and cast off a real sheep) it reminds me a Marti Friedlander photo. Bruce - I want to see MORE!

So of course this sent me off on a tangent about NZ having been fairly much an agrarian society and how this has been reflected in our art. Photographically there is a lot about. Peter Peryer’s dead cattle beast, possum in traps (which personally I think would look GREAT on a calendar) among a wide range of rural subjects. Marti Friedlanders gothic sheep, and more from say Robin Morrison perhaps.

As for ‘other’ art, I remember somewhere some really creepy cow paintings but I am mortified that I can’t remember the artist as I am fairly certain it was a “name” (help me out anyone?) and there were the pastoral landscapes as per usual in of the Kelliher competition type. Doris Lusk’s Tobacco Fields, Toss Woollaston rural scenes.

I feel now that art is more urban oriented, because I guess, people are. I dont’ have much knowledge of contemporary art in the ‘now’ sense but you probably don’t see too many ‘installations’ involving drench and cattle yards. I would have thought a milking shed would be ‘fertile ground’ (haha) for artistic inspiration of the assemblage type. Braying donkey’s aside - can anyone point me to something in this line?

In Other News: The City Gallery is on YouTube

Tags: City Gallery, Mahalski