Post by NZBC on May 13, 2007 14:43:33 GMT 12
ART NEWS: WINTER 2004
by Virginia Were
Dunedin artist Simon Kaan spends a lot of time in the water at Aramoana beach waiting for the perfect wave. He juggles his passion for surfing with his practice as a printmaker and painter but he says the two are not necessarily at odds. His surfing feeds his art and vice versa.
Perhaps it¡¯s no coincidence that land, sea and sky dominate his work. The spaces are fragmented by floating, indeterminate horizon lines, which create a sense of rhythm and movement ¨C a rhythm Kaan says echoes that of the sea and the waves he¡¯s always looking for.
¡°As a surfer your key aesthetic preference is a wave and how it breaks. If you go to any surfer¡¯s house you¡¯ll see a picture of a perfect wave on their wall, and it¡¯s more than a wave to them. They¡¯ve got an emotional connection to that form and that shape because they¡¯ve had a certain pleasure from interacting with it. So for me there is an aesthetic pleasure from working with that form,¡± says Kaan.
The waka-like shape in one series brings to mind the curved edge of a wave or a surfboard as well as a celestial vessel carrying spirits from one world to the next. The waka appeared on the shore and floating in the sky in the painting Ka Waka Tipuraka, 2003, a multi-panelled folding screen. It is an uncertain landscape of land, sky and water with no clear delineation of space or time. The title of the painting translates as ¡°the boat of growth¡±.
Kaan is of Ngai Tahu, Chinese and European descent and, though the waka shape is distinctly Maori, he says the boat as a vessel for the living and the dead is pretty much a universal symbol. It is also a way for him to locate himself in the work. ¡°The waka forms are myself and also people around me ¨C people who have passed away as well as those who are present.¡±
Likewise, the moth that appears in recent paintings, is a carrier of spirits in both Maori and Asian cultures.
Because Kaan¡¯s landscapes are imagined rather than real ¨C he never sketches or takes photos but relies on memory and observation ¨C they have a dreamlike, mystical feeling that is reinforced by the pale, shimmering colours he uses.
The ambiguous spaces and fragmented surfaces further reinforce this abstraction.
What does he notice when he looks at landscape?
¡°The dips between two hills ¨C the spaces in between. I started looking at them as departure points. I notice the relationship between landforms ¨C especially in the area of Dunedin I¡¯m from. They are all ancestors and the relationship between them is like a conversation.
¡°The space between two landforms is like a pause or restraint and I¡¯m acknowledging that space ¨C either literally, metaphorically or physically. As an artist you deal with composition. I think it¡¯s the key ¨C composition itself can be the content.¡±
He likens structure in his art to the composition of a piece of electronica or classical music. ¡°It¡¯s about rhythm and movement ¨C it takes you from the start and pulls you through to the finish. It¡¯s the same thing with my work ¨C you can go from top to bottom or you can roll or stretch through. And those lines, or those different horizons, can take you through ¨C sometimes you can see them as panels.
¡°It¡¯s like you¡¯re walking past a fence and there is a gap and you can see a bit of landscape through it, and there are flat panels. So there is this in and out thing happening ¨C foreground and distance playing off each other.¡±
www.simonkaan.co.nz/reviews.html
by Virginia Were
Dunedin artist Simon Kaan spends a lot of time in the water at Aramoana beach waiting for the perfect wave. He juggles his passion for surfing with his practice as a printmaker and painter but he says the two are not necessarily at odds. His surfing feeds his art and vice versa.
Perhaps it¡¯s no coincidence that land, sea and sky dominate his work. The spaces are fragmented by floating, indeterminate horizon lines, which create a sense of rhythm and movement ¨C a rhythm Kaan says echoes that of the sea and the waves he¡¯s always looking for.
¡°As a surfer your key aesthetic preference is a wave and how it breaks. If you go to any surfer¡¯s house you¡¯ll see a picture of a perfect wave on their wall, and it¡¯s more than a wave to them. They¡¯ve got an emotional connection to that form and that shape because they¡¯ve had a certain pleasure from interacting with it. So for me there is an aesthetic pleasure from working with that form,¡± says Kaan.
The waka-like shape in one series brings to mind the curved edge of a wave or a surfboard as well as a celestial vessel carrying spirits from one world to the next. The waka appeared on the shore and floating in the sky in the painting Ka Waka Tipuraka, 2003, a multi-panelled folding screen. It is an uncertain landscape of land, sky and water with no clear delineation of space or time. The title of the painting translates as ¡°the boat of growth¡±.
Kaan is of Ngai Tahu, Chinese and European descent and, though the waka shape is distinctly Maori, he says the boat as a vessel for the living and the dead is pretty much a universal symbol. It is also a way for him to locate himself in the work. ¡°The waka forms are myself and also people around me ¨C people who have passed away as well as those who are present.¡±
Likewise, the moth that appears in recent paintings, is a carrier of spirits in both Maori and Asian cultures.
Because Kaan¡¯s landscapes are imagined rather than real ¨C he never sketches or takes photos but relies on memory and observation ¨C they have a dreamlike, mystical feeling that is reinforced by the pale, shimmering colours he uses.
The ambiguous spaces and fragmented surfaces further reinforce this abstraction.
What does he notice when he looks at landscape?
¡°The dips between two hills ¨C the spaces in between. I started looking at them as departure points. I notice the relationship between landforms ¨C especially in the area of Dunedin I¡¯m from. They are all ancestors and the relationship between them is like a conversation.
¡°The space between two landforms is like a pause or restraint and I¡¯m acknowledging that space ¨C either literally, metaphorically or physically. As an artist you deal with composition. I think it¡¯s the key ¨C composition itself can be the content.¡±
He likens structure in his art to the composition of a piece of electronica or classical music. ¡°It¡¯s about rhythm and movement ¨C it takes you from the start and pulls you through to the finish. It¡¯s the same thing with my work ¨C you can go from top to bottom or you can roll or stretch through. And those lines, or those different horizons, can take you through ¨C sometimes you can see them as panels.
¡°It¡¯s like you¡¯re walking past a fence and there is a gap and you can see a bit of landscape through it, and there are flat panels. So there is this in and out thing happening ¨C foreground and distance playing off each other.¡±
www.simonkaan.co.nz/reviews.html