Riverbed, Waiau 1932

Curator: It’s astonishing how much tension and expanse Angus manages to evoke with such restraint in this watercolor. The light and the distance really gets to you... Editor: Gets to me too – I can almost feel the dryness of the land, a landscape baked under the sun. A place thirsty for life but holding onto it! The sparseness, the watercolor medium… feels fragile, honest. Curator: Exactly. What we’re seeing is “Riverbed, Waiau,” completed in 1932 by Rita Angus, on display here at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. I'm immediately drawn to this specific intersection, a space laden with significant narratives linked to settler colonialism and land use in New Zealand. Editor: True. I notice a stark kind of beauty – and that play with flatness, and with almost muted colors… The almost whimsical distribution of lonely trees. What’s she saying about perspective, about the land, do you think? Curator: The painting aligns with the Realist movement in its attentiveness to observed reality. But I am particularly interested in what feels included or excluded here; it could represent resistance to dominant ideologies of land ownership by capturing a specific ecology. I always seek that dialogic tension. Editor: I just like how it *feels*. This reminds me, surprisingly, of certain Chinese landscape paintings in its use of space. How that mountain range melts almost indistinguishably with the sky. Everything seems caught in a hazy dream. I like how this artist blends her Western influences with… well, whatever inner compass she was working from. Curator: What you term "inner compass" could very well echo her personal values as informed by broader discourses of pacifism, feminism, and environmentalism. I always like to look for those deeper layers. The political undertones can then really start resonating... Editor: Yes… and maybe a bit of just raw, heartfelt feeling too? Curator: Naturally. The emotional dimension serves to create a kind of entry point... allowing diverse viewerships, with differing interests, to connect through empathic exchanges. Editor: So there it is: Beauty meets Meaning. Curator: Indeed. I invite all listeners to really reflect upon these dualities as they consider their own embodied connection to this work and the larger themes we’ve engaged with here today.