New paintings by Pippa Sanderson 4 June ­ 5 July

Geographical Positioning System - new paintings by Pippa Sanderson Idiom Studio

4 June ­ 5 July 2003

TeWhanganui-a-tara is the Maori name for Wellington, and also for the hill overlooking the settlement of Waimarama in Hawkes Bay. The hill features in the paintings stolen from Wellington artist Pippa Sanderson's exhibition 'Returning in Disguise' at the Manawatu Art Gallery last year.

Wellington is also the name of a village in the English county of Shropshire, where Pippa's Victorian ancestors were born, married, and migrated to New Zealand.

In her latest exhibition, ŒGeographical Positioning System¹, Pippa explores how the ghosts of her Pakeha ancestors made their presence felt in the land, in the architectural and botanical traces of England, and in the European placenames which overlaid the Maori names. In these landscapes, based on coastal Wellington, the craggy coastal crannies are populated by cousins to the bird-masked numinos from Pippa's Hawkes Bay paintings. She says, ³Their relationship to the environment mirrors the way unconscious thoughts emerge and recede from language².

© Scoop Media