Gateway, 1986-1990, Albert Park, Auckland, New Zealand, Photo / Haru Sameshima
Golf courses, maungas and memorials: you will have seen Chris Booth’s remarkable “environment” sculptures in many public places, in Aotearoa and internationally. A retrospective exhibition celebrates the extraordinary, and internationally renowned artist. By Garth Cartwright.
You surely know the sculptures - Gateway’s twin columns of majestic boulders at the corner of Albert Park and Victoria St; the magnificent Rainbow Warrior Memorial, situated on a tor at Matauri Bay overlooking the last resting place of the Greenpeace ship - but do you know the sculptor? Kerikeri native Chris Booth is behind these and other remarkable works and 2023 finds Booth having a career retrospective exhibition at Whangārei’s Art Museum while a major new work will soon be unveiled in Kerikeri.
Booth’s sculptures are scattered across New Zealand; they can be found on golf courses and entranceways to apartments, in parks and up mountains. All are, to differing degrees, remarkable and none quite the same. Having worked as a sculptor for the past half century, Booth has created a remarkable oeuvre that’s established him both at home and internationally. At 74 he shows no sign of flagging, his commitment to creating environmental art remains as strong as ever.
“I was born to make large sculptures that engage with the environment,” says Booth. “Aged 19 I was based in Cornwall, England, having apprenticed myself to Dame Barbara Hepworth, and I had a vision of being invited by different cultures to work with them. And I could only do this by coming home.”
Booth’s very much a Kiwi do-it-yourself bloke (with a dash of visionary artist). Friendly and unpretentious, his sculptures are challenging - both in raising the necessary funds and execution - and enthralling works that reflect his lifelong commitment to celebrating the natural world: he’s a nature poet, one who weaves stones as others do words.
Born in Kerikeri to an English father and New Zealand mother, Chris and his three brothers grew up on an orchard that was organic before the term was invented. Raised to love the land and sea, the Booths engaged from an early age with the Māori community.
“In the old days, Kerikeri was very much a mixed Māori-Pākehā community,” says Booth, “and I went to Northland College which was 75 per cent Māori and some of my teachers were Māori – my art teacher, Selwyn Te Ngareatua Wilson was my most inspirational teacher. So I grew up in what was a bicultural environment.”
His upbringing, matched with a crusading sense of social justice, has led to Booth working closely with iwi across New Zealand, then alongside Australian Aboriginal and Native American communities. Dover Samuels of Ngāti Kura asked Booth if he would do something with the propeller of the Rainbow Warrior (the ship’s final resting place being the seabed nearby to Matauri Bay).
“This was very close to my heart,” says Booth, acknowledging the great things Greenpeace and the crew of the Rainbow Warrior had done. “It almost bankrupted me but I’m so pleased I did it - even today I get messages from people who have seen the memorial and want to tell me what it means to them.”
Te Haa o Te Ao – Breath of the World (his forthcoming Kerikeri sculpture) is Booth’s most ambitious sculpture yet. From a 17m-high steel pole 150 locally sourced rocks hang on steel cords, tightened and loosened by a winch so as to reflect Northland’s handling of climate change.
“My aim is for school groups to come and engage with the work so children understand how climate change is affecting us,” he says.
Te Ao has faced huge challenges, both in its engineering and construction and, more chillingly, from reactionary Kerikeri residents whose vocal opposition to the sculpture included an act of vandalism that resulted in $35,000 damages. Backed by Ngāti Rehia leaders Nora Rameka and Kipa Munro - the sculpture stands on Ngati Rehia land - and Our Kerikeri, an organisation aimed at promoting a progressive Kerikeri, Booth has seen off his persecutors and is currently putting the finishing touches on what will surely be one of Aotearoa’s most remarkable public artworks.
“The hatred, the intolerance, was shocking,” says Booth, “especially seeing I’ve lived here all my life and the funding was spent locally. But Ngāti Rehia have stood firm - it’s their land Te Ao stands on - and faced down the opposition. We refuse to let Kerikeri be defined by bullies and racists.”
If Booth’s visions might sound outlandish on paper - a stone rainbow! A pebble blanket! - ever since 19-year-old Booth dropped out of Ilam Art School and took a boat to England, determined to study under Dame Barbara Hepworth, he has proved himself a wizard. Returning to Kerikeri in 1970, he initially lived in a disused cowshed on the family’s orchard. Recognition came slowly - Booth wasn’t then (or now) making art designed to decorate collectors’ villas - and he worked as a school bus driver, collecting children from outlying Māori communities.
“This really opened my eyes to the injustice and inequality practised towards Māori,” he says, leading to him volunteering on the Māori Land March in 1975: through this he formed a close friendship with the poet Hone Tūwhare. “I was one of the few Pākehās on the Land March and Hone was very magnanimous - we became very close, and remained so. He was such a warm, witty man.” The 1982 Frances Hodgkins fellowship based Booth in Dunedin; here he created his first large-scale sculptures while mentored by Ralph Hotere. “Ralph was a beautiful man. Very down-to-earth yet clever: he knew how to put on his public image for a photographer - fag in mouth, hat at an angle! He encouraged me to build sculptures that celebrated the Earth.” Both Hotere and Tuwhare were Te Tai Tokerau born and, in Booth, they found a kindred spirit.
Blazing a trail through Kiwi art, Booth won the commission to create Albert Park’s Gateway and was the only artist considered to build the Rainbow Warrior Memorial. Unlike a lot of 1980s-era art, which revelled in chic theory and flashy gesture, Booth went his own way, creating art that engaged the viewer with the natural world. International acclaim and commissions followed - three books have been published celebrating Booth’s work - yet his refusal to make small, decorative pieces means he continually faces financial hurdles.
“I love what I do,” he replies when I mention how hard creating huge sculptures is for him,both financially and physically. “It’s never going to be easy and it can be wearing. But we live in paradise here. I’m blessed in so many ways.”
The Whangārei Art Museum’s Chris Booth exhibition runs until April 30. https://whangareiartmuseum.co.nz/exhibition/he-toka-mata-te-ra/
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