Bold Fire, Whale Bay
Maker
Buck Nin
Production date
1976
Description
Dr Buck Loy Nin's work is easily distinguished by its signature horizontal pictorial divisions. The bottom sections of his paintings are often brooding, as if we are seeing a cross-section of the earth, alluding to the groaning of Papatuuaanuku (Earth Mother in Maaori cosmology). At other times, the waterscapes take on a similarly sombre state, suggesting something beneath the surface. The other two thirds of his works are frequently divided into billowing plumes of smoke or clouds, like a spiritual connection to Ranginui (Sky Father in Maaori cosmology), who is often represented as a super-intricate koowhaiwhai pattern (lintel adornment), like a network.
Nin weaves in stories of indigenous resistance and the mourning of the whenua (land) at being trampled by the effects of colonisation and loss, urban sprawl, pollution and capitalism. Whale Bay is a West Waikato beach just outside Whaaingaroa/Raglan. The work appears to reference the contemporary struggle of local iwi for the return of unjustly appropriated land in the area. By the 1980s, Nin's works were employed as secondary school exemplars in the school curriculum as contemporary art benchmarks.
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