Juliet Peter, iconic New Zealand artist

Mid-Summer Night 1979

Woodblock print on paper

Image Size: 492 X 634mm (194 x 25m)

The above is a wood block print on paper, and I like the fact that it is a woodblock print on paper. That in itself appeals to me. The materiality of the work suits the very starkness and simplicity of the image. The big white flowers at the front, and the fine blocky white detail in behind I find interesting. The black against the white, the white outline of the black hill, this scene speaks to me of the hilly landscape of inner-city Wellington.. I also enjoy the fact that colour has been edited out and this is a tonal piece. Once again, this is a busy scene, yet I find the artist’s intention to be clear. The scene is without people and is pretty. A cluttered feel pervades the landscape. The flowers seem to converge from their flat space, and the detail is  both figurative and abstracted. Everything is loosely rendered, yet the symbolic intention is clear. I can recognise the telephone poles, the hill in the background, the chunky housing: inner suburbia awake at night. I like the fact that this is a highly New Zealand cityscape in that Wellington is a uniquely New Zealand city, and perhaps New Zealand’s most iconic city. There is a conflicting feel between the nature of the flowers and the hills against the looming man-made clutter. A tension comes out of this, a tension between nature and perhaps the urbanisation of the land. The era this work was made coincides with the fledgling moments of the Eco/Green movement within New Zealand, and I feel that the work is in tune with this development. New Zealand politics interests me, and is something I wish to embody within my own practice, whether abstracted or symbolic or figuratively.

I enjoy the punchiness of this work, and the linear, stark contrasts. Once again, there is a three dimensional quality to it, and a business that works. I like the editing out, the keeping in, the sense of overcrowding and competition for breathing space, of chaos, of clutter, of damage to the environment.