The exhibition called Kingfisher Blue/Kikorangi Kotare by Star Gossage at Tim Melville Gallery is largely devoted to women: Maori women, staunch, yet pensive and closely associated with the earth and stars.
The drawing in these paintings is not conventionally strong but it is compelling. The waif-like quality, the heavy dark hair, the downward look, elongated fingers on exceptionally long arms, the heavy clothing - all play their part in the emotional impact of these melancholy images.
My Name is Star must be a self-portrait but neither this nor any of the other figures, though enigmatic and private, suggests one particular woman. In the great tradition of symbolism, they express in their moodiness and connection to the earth a generation of Maori women. These are not the women painted by Robin Kahukiwa, triumphant and formidable, but have a quieter presence that is richly evocative of a strength that is equally powerful. When they gather together in a group in front of the marae, as in Your Place in the Sky, they are monumental. The simple gesture of assertion and protest of a woman quietly raising her hand in Piki Te Ora is a gesture of strength. The force comes from intensity of emotion and colour rather than from detail.
The emotional tone is set by the prevailing shades of blue. This is strongly reminiscent of Picasso's Blue Period early last century but, where Picasso used his blue to suggest the plight of beggars and wandering performers, Gossage's women are grounded in rural Aotearoa. Yet the elongated fingers and long limbs have the same force.
Gossage also makes use of birds as symbols of the flight of thoughts and the spirit. They surround the head of the pensive figure in Manu Ao and are given a painting to themselves in All the Little Birds in My Garden. This work, with a splendid sky shot through with the orange/red of a setting sun on clouds, is one of the occasional flashes of intense colour that sparks through some of the landscape paintings.
