NightFlight

The Lake Ohau  spring  storm of October 4th  2020 resulted in a devastating fire fuelled by the great winds. The fire  took hold in the thousands of wilding pines which surrounded the village destroying 50 homes  .Our home was amongst them. After  fleeing our home  that night  I began to wonder about the survival of the birds that lived at Ohau. The Bell birds, [Korimako],  the little chaffinches [ Pahirini] , the  Kereru , the  kea and Karearea. The plight of these birds  led me to this body of work NightFlight.

 Birds  fly at night for two reasons, they are either migrating birds  using the stars and the moon to navigate their way  or they are escaping some peril. Their flight is in the pursuit of the same goal , in search for a safe haven for their very survival.

What is common amongst many of us is a belief   that ‘bad things’  don’t happen  in the safety of your home or back yard.  Bad things happen to others and  they happen elsewhere.  In NightFlight  references are made to  childhood  memories of lazy sunny days, lying amongst the buttercups, making daisy chains, blowing dandelion seed heads and making wishes while watching nesting Sparrows  and frolicking rabbits . The arrival of the cuckoo who’s shrill cry calls the gardeners to till the soil and sew seeds for the happy arrival of spring. However there is a foreboding message delivered as well. In  Celtic tradition the cuckoo inhabits the world of the dead and the living and its cry  is a warning  of a fierce  spring storm that is to come.

Above the Brown House engulfed in flames flies  the Kahu.  Maui  in his quest to give man fire tricked the goddess Mahuika in giving up her flames. When she discovered his  deceit she threw  her last flame at him. Maui turns himself into a Kahu and escapes the fire and  flies away. Above the Kahu the  Kea spreads his wings. The Kea is  Kaitiaki [guardian]of the mountains,  where   the now endangered Karearea lives , a fierce hunter  who can take its prey on the wing.

The  Welcome  Swallows  migrated from the  islands and have now made Aotearoa their  ‘home’. the chaffinches [Pahirini]  were bought to New Zealand by European setters in the 1800’s s as reminders of ‘home’. The  nesting swallows amongst mountain daisies are a symbol of peace and rejuvenation in their safe haven. Above their nests is  The Guiding moon, lighting the way and the phoenix constellation that lies in the southern sky.

 The Roman Poet Ovid wrote the Phoenix, a mythical sacred fire bird, would live for 500 years. At the end it would build itself a nest that was to be his own funeral pyre. A new bird would be born from its father’s ashes. When the young Phoenix  was strong enough it would carry the nest to the temple of Hyperion, the god of heavenly light, son of Uranus [heaven] and Gaea [earth].His children Heleos the sun, Eos  the dawn and  Selene the moon.