Across the Pacific

By LINDA HERRICK Arts editor

There is a special name which runs through Robin White's life, and collaterally, her art. Florence is the name of her grandmother, her mother, her sister and her daughter. By coincidence, Florence was also a young woman who became a close friend during the artist and her family's 17-year sojourn on the atoll of Tarawa in Kiribati.

Consequently, in the major touring exhibition Island Life: Robin White in New Zealand and Kiribati, which surveys 30 years of White's prolific and varied body of work, images of one Florence or another are a thread.

Many who visit the show will recognise the iconic image of her elderly mother painted in front of Harbour Cone in Dunedin. And Island Life contains the moving Saying Goodbye to Florence series, based on photographs taken in her mother's house the day after her death.

The woodblock series, Beginner's Guide to Gilbertese, is an ingenious marriage of images and Kiribati vocabulary naming everyday things on the atoll, such as body parts, insects, housing. Beginner's Guide includes The Name of This Girl is Florence, a study of White's friend Florence Masipei.

That particular Florence even influenced the fate of the family when they decided to return to New Zealand in 1999, to Masterton. Florence's sister Lily Ann, says White, was already living in the town, "and her parents were essentially grandparents to our children".

Wherever the place, the feeling is clear that White and her family are far more sanguine and geographically flexible than many of us could ever manage to be. Spiritual serenity is a key.

White's parents were members of the Bahai'i faith in New Zealand, her father a supporter of the Peace Council. He instilled a sensible, hard-work ethos in his daughter, one of whose duties was to tend a large kumara patch in the family garden in Epsom. "Be methodical," was his advice.

Part of White's exposure to the negative ways of the world came when she was taken by her parents at an early age to see a gruesomely raw documentary about Hiroshima, shot soon after the blast. The images continue to haunt her, and have shaped her world outlook ever since.

White's early history as an artist is well documented but, briefly, she started drawing when she was around 12. Visits to Auckland Art Gallery, and seeing works like Rita Angus' iconic, clear-eyed portrait of Betty Curnow, strongly affected her because, "It came across as very real ... a role model for the young painter".

As she grew through adolescence, the intensity of White's interest was reinforced by her art teacher at Epsom Girls Grammar School, the artist May Smith, whose work is itself now held at Auckland Art Gallery.

After school, White studied for a diploma in fine arts at Elam, and had as one of her teachers Colin McCahon. After graduating in 1967, she studied teaching for a year, then moved to Paremata and Mana College, where she painted the famous Sam Hunt portrait, which appears in Island Life. With Hunt and Bob and Honey Anderson, she collaborated on the groundbreaking Bottle Press publications.

Her move to Portobello, near Dunedin, in 1971 marked the end of her career as anything but an artist, and she has been painting professionally fulltime ever since.

White married Mike Fudakowski in 1972, and with son Michael (then aged 8), moved to Tarawa early in 1982 to help the Bahai'i community in Kiribati, where the faith has a significant presence. They were practically living on top of the equator, with few Western amenities and a lifestyle untouched by concepts such as schedules.

But, she says, "It didn't take me that long to adjust. It was just dramatic, the contrast. Adjusting to a place and a culture that was very different is a deeply felt experience. And I must say, a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable one, it was a real adventure."

Learning the language was a priority, so White set about creating visual tools which would help her, including making the series Beginner's Guide to Gilbertese, which was later published in a book called 28 Days in Kiribati, compiled with her friend Claudia Pond Eyley.

When Robin and her family arrived, there were no other painters in Kiribati except one I-Kiribati man with whom she used to chat, who painted small family-owned shop fronts. Art supplies were obtained when she travelled back to New Zealand and Australia each year - White has dealers in Wellington and Canberra - then came a wakeup call.

Fire in 1996 destroyed all of the family's possessions - including their house, her studio and all of her materials. (By now, White had had two other children, Conrad and Florence, both born on the island.)

As usual, she took it in her stride. "Well, when the fire wiped out everything, we got a lovely view of the lagoon," she laughs. "And I got suddenly nudged into a new way of thinking about my practice. I didn't have access to the things I was used to, so that was fortuitous. It was a drastic way to change but what can you do?

"I thought I'll just go with what I've got, which I should have done years before. Sometimes it takes something drastic to get you in a new direction."

So White took up collaborative work with some of the local women, combining their skills of weaving with her skills of making images. Some of the results - including her New Angel series - depict items like a can of mackerel, a loaf of fresh bread, a packet of safety matches decorated by a hibiscus flower - dyed on to bleached pandanus leaves which were then woven.

Two linked series, seen in Island Life, are The Fisherman Loses His Way and Sainimele Goes Fishing - both based on observations of village life. Sainimele, a knowledge-seeking woman, represents a challenge to the traditional ways, while the fisherman is a metaphor for a person unable to deal with change who is destroying himself with alcohol.

White and her family returned to New Zealand because of the children's educational needs. Was it hard to adjust after nearly two decades of island life?

"Yes and no. You just adjust. We've transported back here certain attitudes and practices we got used to in Kiribati. We've tried to maintain the values we've taken on board from living in the Pacific."

Besides, says White, Masterton is almost like living in a village, just a little bigger, and colder. "Like any village, you don't disappear into the comfort zone of that social milieu that tends to suit you. You go walking down the street and everybody is there, the full spectrum of what the community consists of, just as it was in the village. I like that because it feels real, that's humanity. You can't pretend - reality is constantly in your face, however disturbing that may be. I like that."

* Robin White will take a children's workshop at the gallery on Sunday between 2 and 3pm; open to children aged 5-12; bookings essential, ph (09) 307 4540; she will also give a talk at the gallery Sunday at 3pm.

Exhibition

* What: Island Life: Robin White in New Zealand and Kiribati; curated by the Hocken Library, University of Otago

* Where & when: Auckland Art Gallery, October 25-February 8