JOHN PULE DARK SAINTS
JOHN PULE DARK SAINTS
28 June - 22 July 2012
© Martin Browne Contemporary © All images copyright John Pule This catalogue is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. COMPILER: Electra Foley PHOTOGRAPHY: Tobias Kraus COLOUR SEPARATIONS: Spitting Image, Sydney PRINTING: Southern Colour, Sydney Cover Image: Seven Days, 2012, oil on stretched canvas, 200 x 200 cm
LIST OF WORKS What I Will See There, 2012, oil on stretched canvas, 200 x 200 cm The Upper Plateau, 2012, oil, ink, varnish, enamel and resin on stretched canvas, 100 x 100 cm Extraordinary Day, 2012, oil, ink, varnish, enamel and resin on stretched canvas, 100 x 100 cm The Lost Steps, 2012, oil on stretched canvas, 200 x 200 cm Through Arcadia Quietly, 2012, oil, ink, varnish, enamel and resin on stretched canvas, 100 x 100 cm Restless Spirit, 2012, oil, ink, varnish, enamel and resin on stretched canvas, 100 x 100 cm Seven Days, 2012, oil on stretched canvas, 200 x 200 cm
DARK SAINTS Language came later to my mouth when I was new here, sweetening my saliva so when that day arrives ants can have a field day. It is not through resuscitation that Gods live because Gods never die. All those perturbed visitors who wrote us out of our savage solitude and remarked how stone was crudely sculptured to bring heaven closer or hell even closer. And when they wrote that our skin was determined by the wrath of the sun, little did they know that where I come from my heart was half bark and the other half was quarter cloud and the rest was all shark. Then our skin was exposed to a little light that flashed like a star and we took this to be the arrival of the galaxy to hover about our heads, and we were shocked to see that our bodies could be repeated over and over on celluloid and disseminate universally through wires that we could be in several places in any one time. I could be in Suva today, Damascus tomorrow or Fukushima by evening. It was even written that when life flees from the body all we had to do was look up towards the sky and sing an ancient chant and life would return. I soon learned that if I secreted enough potassium from my upper lip I could clone any God stored in museums, but when from a lock of hair I could replicate an angel, its labia majora resembled the jaw of a shark. Dark Saints is about the Gods of Polynesia. Saint Tagaroa. Saint Tane. Saint Huanaki. Saint Hina. Saint Hine and Saint Tuna. Saint Limaua. Saint Papatuanuku. Saint Maui. Saint Omai. Saint Tupaia. Dark Saints is also about these uncertain times we live in. So when I see my heart carried up a mountain, along with guns, war torn countries and dreams essential for protection and other worldly functions, I remember these lines: When the soul has been wounded and the sun is keen to surface in the dark, there is one place that I go to, that place that fills the earth’s land with moisture and water, that place the ancients call mother of all mothers, the ocean. Our Saints never really disappeared. They all became attached to the upper plateaus of memory. John Pule, Auckland, June 2012
What I Will See There, 2012 Oil on stretched canvas 200 x 200 cm
The Upper Plateau, 2012, oil, ink, varnish, enamel and resin on stretched canvas, 100 x 100 cm
Extraordinary Day, 2012, oil, ink, varnish, enamel and resin on stretched canvas, 100 x 100 cm
The Lost Steps, 2012 Oil on stretched canvas 200 x 200 cm
Through Arcadia Quietly, 2012, oil, ink, varnish, enamel and resin on stretched canvas, 100 x 100 cm
Restless Spirit, 2012, oil, ink, varnish, enamel and resin on stretched canvas, 100 x 100 cm
Seven Days, 2012 Oil on stretched canvas 200 x 200 cm
JOHN PULE Born 1962, Liku, Niue Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012 2012 2011 2010- 2012 2009 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2003 2003 2002 2001 2000 2000
Dark Saints, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney I was born with wings in my hands... Jonathan Smart, Christchurch 1991-2011, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland John Pule: Hauaga (Arrivals), Wellington City Gallery, Wellington, touring to Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland Different Oceans, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne Nothing Must Remain, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland John Pule, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney Amanakiaga, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne Another Green World, Gow Langsford, Gallery, Auckland John Pule, Galerie Römerapotheke, Zurich Niniko Lalolagi – Dazzling Worlds, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland Recent Painting, Gow Langsford Gallery, Sydney The Wind reminds me how palpable and mythical my life was becoming, Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington New Lithographs and Etchings, Paper Graphica Gallery, Christchurch I had a mind as invisible as light, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland A Sequence of Lyrics Dedicated to the Birth of a Lighthouse, Bartley Nees Gallery, Wellington Fakaue Kia Koe Maui Pomare (Thanks to you Maui Pomare), Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland People Get Ready, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2011- 2012 2012 2011 2011 2011
Kermadec: Nine Artists in the South Pacific, Tauranga Art Gallery, Tauranga; Wellington City Art Gallery, Wellington, Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum, Auckland; New Zealand High Commission, Tonga; Pew Foundation, Easter Island - Rapa Nui Home AKL, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland Game On, Hawkes Bay Regional Art Gallery, Napier Oceania, Wellington Public Art Gallery, Wellington 21st Century: Art in the First Decade, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS CONTINUED 2010 2007 2007 2007 2006 2006 2005 2005 2005 2005 2004 2004
Unnerved: The New Zealand Project, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Date Line- Contemporary Art from the Pacific, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin Turbulence, Auckland 3rd Triennial, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland News From Islands, Campbelltown Gallery, Sydney Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane We can all go together/brown eyes blue, Suter Museum, Nelson Scope Miami, Miami Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland Future Tense: Security and Human Rights, Griffith University, Queensland College of Art, Brisbane John Pule, Sofia Tekela-Smith and John Walsh, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney Paradise Now! Asia Society Museum, New York South Pacific Arts Festival, Palau
COLLECTIONS Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tamaki, Auckland, New Zealand Auckland University, Auckland, New Zealand Chartwell Trust Collection, Auckland, New Zealand Fletcher Trust Challenge, Auckland, New Zealand Government of Niue, Niue Manukau City Council, Auckland, New Zealand National Bank Onehunga, New Zealand National Gallery of Australia, Canberra National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne National Museum of Scotland, Scotland Pacific Studies Building, University of Auckland, New Zealand Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand Wallace Trust Collection, Auckland, New Zealand Wellington High Court, Wellington, New Zealand