Blog

Super slick night time shot, what a moon! The art collective…I’m the one with huge daisy sunglasses

Why hello there and welcome to my website, and most importantly thank you for your interest in the artwork debut’d at Aum Festival NYE 2022. This means you are a curious, considerate soul. We should be friends. As art is an our main point of connection in this moment, let’s dive right in. I am so grateful that Fleur accepted me into the Aum Arts group, and I’m very inspired by her mission of making public art less toxic, more compassionate to the Earth and its life. She encouraged us to think about wastage, materials being non-toxic, and the life-span of things. We’ve seen so much throw-away-culture crop up as a result of large music festivals and I love that the team at Aum have always come from a different approach and stuck to their guns. So I haven’t done a lot of public art, this is really special to me and something I’d love to make more frequent in my life. Here’s to 2023 being more large scale public artworks cropping up in Aotearoa!

What’s the Story of The Tetrahendron?

Have you noticed that you feel differently about art once you’ve heard a little bit of about its backstory? Yeah, artwork in a gallery, without any commentary or prompts can be really alienating. This post is all about offering up more food for thought about what my intent was and broadening the impact of what’s in my mind and what you take away from the sculpture.

It’s a tetrahedron! What is that? It’s a really magical shape. Here’s more about them. 

When I first thought of making a painting for Aum’s theme…Imaginarium…I immediately thought of an ecosystem of fertility, wild abundance, and just the miracle of plant-life. Once the triangle shape came to be I realised I wanted the base of that shape to be about the subterranean world, mycelium, and the roots of the mighty trees we see. The most important part of our existence is beneath our feet. So I wanted it to be the biggest part of the sculpture. 

Because the piece is all about 3’s there’s also three different perspectives happening. Up close details of mycelium, roots, and soil…then a far away view of our Earth, then finally the void, the abyss of night skies. With those three you have a good sense of how many ways there are to view life as we know it. From the potential of our history, the stars all the way to our actual compiled past, the crust and undergrowth below. It’s also a good time to talk about the symbolism behind the number three. Three is the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. It was also the number of time – past, present, future; birth, life, death; beginning, middle, end – it was the number of the divine (almost every religious or cosmology has a strong connection to three beings unified as one). Three is often the magic number in fairy tales, in architecture, even in our own practical language “on the count of three, or third times’ the charm”….I love that.

I wanted to work within the sacred number of three’s the whole way, to imbue this work with a the golden ratio both in composition, surface numbers, and story. 

But why all that dark soil Rudo, isn’t this supposed to be a psychedlic colourful art show?

Yeah…yeah it is. Trust me if you’ve seen the rest of my gallery you’ll know my religion is colour…But I’ve been reframing my personal relationship with death…how important decay and renewal is…and I think it deserves its time in the limelight. To be really inside of something is to be encased inside the dark womb-like cave of presence. There is nothing more important for us at this time to be at home with our bodies, with death, and be present. I wanted you to be grounded when you are around my work. There’s a lot of disembodiment, ungroundedness at festivals and public spaces…this digital world is heady and intellectual but it has to keep good standing with our most important asset…our presence and our groundedness and the Earth itself. We’re not immortal, everything we do is a step closer to the end of our physical existence and I for one want to have a fantastic time with that, I am sick of being scared of growing old, of being useless, of being forgotten. I’m ready to embody the sensual, feminine, powerful and brutal reality that to be alive is also to be close to death. I hope that doesn’t freak you out. I’d love for this to be a celebration of all that can be shed. All that makes us free…and to feel deeply connected to the life-giving powers that shouldn’t be taken for granted…to return to ritual, ceremony, myth, and wonder. 

This work couldn’t have happened without an incredible collection of builders, dreams, and schemers…Sarah Cunningham did a particularly amazing job being my painting buddy to keep us on track in time for the festival!