Towards Aramoana (Drawing For A Black Window) 1981

Ralph Hotere made this mixed media work called Towards Aramoana (Drawing For A Black Window) with a considered, yet open approach. It’s almost like he set a stage for something to happen. There’s this window frame, not quite complete, that divides the pictorial space. Within it, a dance of forms and textures unfolds. A collage element hints at a landscape, disrupted by a bold, dark rectangle and strokes of orange. I keep wondering what kind of tools Hotere used to make this. There’s something very casual about how the collage elements are adhered, with raw edges and visible glue marks. The black mark at the bottom of the window is especially interesting. It acts as an anchor, grounding the composition, but its rough edges and the way it bleeds into the paper suggest a sense of instability. It makes me think of Robert Motherwell, the way he too saw painting as a philosophical exploration. Like him, Hotere is unafraid to leave questions unanswered, embracing ambiguity.