Peter Adsett, Betrayal, 23Nov-22Dec 2012

Peter Adsett was born in Turanganui-a-kiwa, Gisborne. He moved to Australia in 1982 and currently lives in Melbourne. All his works are from Abattoir, a division of MOA. For many years Peter had heard stories about Matawhero and of the descendants buried alongside his great grandfather’s burial site at Makaraka cemetery. It was not until his tertiary years guided by Cliff Whiting and Frank Davis that his understanding and knowledge of this area was challenged. Peter’s education in the late 70’s went to a much greater depth when he was introduced to the local Iwi at Muriwai in the late 80’s in response to a project he was involved in and still is to this day. Threading its way through all these stories was Te Kooti and the descendants of Rongowhakaata. Peter’s first response was ‘Matawhero: Bullet Holes and Bandages’ and he now returns home to unveil Betrayal.
Since 1989 he has presented annual exhibitions, each one of which is devoted to a single series of large- scale, abstract acrylic paintings. These have been shown at galleries in Australia, Indonesia and the United States. Adsett trained at Palmerston North and Massey University in the late 1970s, the artist (who has an MFA, awarded in Australia in 1999), taught studio at Centralian College, Alice Springs (1996-7), and at the School of Fine Art, Northern Territory University, Darwin (1993-2001). He has given lectures and workshops in Indonesia, New York and Wellington. Adsett was artist-in-residence at Canberra School of Art during 1997, in Yogjakarta, Indonesia (funded by Asialink) in 1999, and at the International Studio programme in New York in 2001 funded by the Australia Council and NT Museum of Art). Since 2000, Peter Adsett has exhibited in New York and Boston and in 2001 was awarded the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. In 2004 he was artist-in-residence at The MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire and his collaboration Two Laws toured NZ. In 2005/6 Peter was involved in The Koru Club, an exhibition of artists who have responded to the work of Gordon Walters at Pataka Museum in Porirua, Wellington.

Peter was awarded a PhD scholarship by the Australian National University (ANU) Canberra, AUS and was asked to explain how abstraction, through black and white enters a dialogue between Maori and Aboriginal cultures. Adsett’s aim in this exhibition is not to paint a narrative of the events of the Siege of Ngatapa* in 1868, but to investigate the concept of betrayal. He sees it as a term that operates in the relationship between Maori and Pakeha,Betrayal is situated at the interface, in the middle of the debate. Although his primary aim is to dialogue with Maori, there are implications for Aboriginal art too (unavoidable when working with horizontality). Horizontality, by its very nature, is the locus of place, the inception of ground where the language of painting comes from whether for Maori or Aboriginal people.

“The desire for reconciliation will not be met and we are left with only the feeling of betrayal, left with only the materiality of paint and the process that obliterates any image. The painting is an act of plain aggression. Frustrated, the black/darks, bleed, puncture, mock shadows, corners, edges. White, meanwhile, continually resists light and behaves as a material, a bruised skin, an oiled fabric, or cling wrap, suffocating any pictorial ground for resolution. The viewer stands in the light to witness what painting (linen and paint) has been subjected to. Who is betrayed? Maori, Pakeha, viewer, painting, all of these or none of these? The violation persists to accompany the negotiation across a cultural and political divide.” - Peter Adsett, text taken from his exegesis.
        
* The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
        
Images: Tom Teutenberg Photography