KEY POINTS:
What: Tall Tales by Wayne Youle
Where and when: Tim Melville Gallery, 2 Kitchener St, to April 5
When artist Wayne Youle was a lad, he was fascinated by the tiger-head tattoo rippling across his grandfather's chest. In those days, his grandfather, who had got the "war aesthetic" tattoo in South-East Asia, was still a relatively young man, his torso powerful and sleek. Many years later, the tiger had aged, the man inside the skin fading away with emphysema.
"They cut through his tattoo," says Youle. "He'd got hairy-chested and went grey so the tiger went grey too. He said: 'Look, the tiger has grown with me.' When he got the tattoo, the tiger was a cub. As he passed away, it was an old tiger."
From a Boy to a Man, a striking large enamel-on-canvas painting of the tiger head, is an homage to his granddad in Youle's new exhibition, Tall Tales. The show is Youle's 18th solo show in a career that spans nearly a decade, with a reputation that is becoming international.
His work has been in group shows in Melbourne and Perth during the past couple of years and, next year, he will take work to a major project, Close Encounters, initiated by the Hyde Park Art Centre and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The museum houses the only marae in North America.
Youle also took part in the huge Pasifika Styles exhibition at the University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, which opened in June 2006 and wound up last month. Youle's little boxes - Jack (Haki) - disturbed those who slipped on the attached headphones to listen to desperate knocking and the sound of someone struggling for air. One of the boxes contained a cast of a head based on seven shrunken Maori heads the museum had housed for decades until their return to New Zealand shortly before the show's opening. Youle said at the time that the knocking "represents the spirit of being, here in the museum".
"Not many people lasted," says Youle of the boxes. "It was what I wanted to achieve."
Youle (Nga Puhi, Ngati Whakaeke and Pakeha), 33, said one great thing about the Cambridge show was the chance to work with the 36 artists who took part - people such as Michel Tuffery, Reuben Patterson, Ani O'Neill, George Nuku, Lisa Reihana and Hemi McGregor.
"And the people at Cambridge were so welcoming, " says Youle.
He was taken aback by the collection of taonga (treasured things) held by the museum, including items from Cook's voyages to New Zealand. "All these things I'd only seen in books - we were holding them, rubbing them on our faces, it happened naturally. Those things are alive and will always remain alive. At times, it was eerie, and spooky, sometimes you would take a photo of a certain piece of taonga and it didn't work ... nothing there. It was hugely emotional to be over there."
Skulls feature in a number of paintings in Tall Tales, continuing another enduring fascination for Youle, who describes a person's skull as "like a finger print ... a treasure box". Does This Crown Make My Head Look Big?, a large acrylic ink painting of a crown-adorned skull, is a reflection on the inevitability of mortality, no matter your status in life.
The title, as with many of Youle's works, comes from his father, who is only 18 years his senior. "I remember when my mum used to ask him, 'Do these pants make my bum look big?' He'd say, 'No, your bum makes your bum look big'."
Youle, who is based in Amberley in north Canterbury, grew up in Titahi Bay but notes that his turangawaewae is Kaikohe in the Far North. He recalls that he was "never that flash" at school but always drew, attracted to "that methodic design thing".
"I wanted to be an artist but my father didn't see any financial merit in it." Instead, Youle studied for a Bachelor of Design degree at Wellington Polytechnic School of Design, majoring in typography. He worked on a small contemporary art paper for the four years of study during which time "I weeded myself out of doing so much design and got the passion for the art".
His father remained unconvinced. In 1999, Youle told him he was going to submit paintings for the Last Chance group show at the Blue Pacific Gallery, Pataka Gallery, Porirua. "He said if it works, you can paint again. If it doesn't, you are going to get a job. I sold all the paintings, made $800, went home and presented him with the cheque. He said two things," Youle adds with a laugh. "First, he said, 'That's more than I earn in a week. And I can't believe people paid good money for that shit.' He said that with a certain amount of tongue in cheek."
Youle says his dad is actually one of his staunchest supporters, defending him "phenomenally" when Youle's morphed "swastikas" created such a fuss at Wanganui's Sarjeant Gallery in 2005. As he did then, he says, "I never did it to offend ... I didn't know how to deal with that. I wanted to show that that symbol, which had been around for 2000 years, meant life, love peace, until [Hitler] ruined it."
Youle's body, adorned with intricate tattoos which wind up one arm, across his torso and back down the other arm, is like a work of art in itself. Delicate swallow tattoos sit on each hand, symbolising his parents.
He refers to the markings on his shoulders as manaia, spiritual guardians. "The manaia all through here are like birds, on my shoulders, like conscience."
