Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Martyn and Louise Myer for the opportunity to undertake the Kenneth Myer artist/writer residency at the Whare Kea Chalet on the edge of the Tititea/Mt Aspiring National Park, the lands of the Ngai Tahu.
For research on Maori lore of the area, I thank Monika Ciolek who was my companion and collaborator during the second half of the residency and her partner Ben Taylor.
All studio shots courtesy of Emma Byrnes of heartland projects.

Whare Kea works in progress

This series is evolving into two distinct bodies of work; one white and atmospheric in response to the snows coming in, and the second richly coloured in response to both the geology and vegetation of the area.  With the latter series single pigments are mixed into the slaked lime render and then encaustic wax is applied to the fresco skin once removed from the wall, to reveal the craquelure within, which alters its quality according to the pigment used. By layering the skins I aim to bring forward the intense red and green of tiny plants in the tarns, the grey brown variations of stone, the golden tussock at dawn and the cool dark sky at night.  The fresco collages are quick notations released from the constraints of representation. Waxed latte di calce(milk of the lime) resembles the lichen growths known as vegetable sheep, always situated on the edge where the rockface turns from horizontal to vertical, presumably to avoid the hooves and teeth of roving animals.
The paintings of the mountainline are begun buonfresco, on damp plaster using raw pigments in pairs, one warm one cool; such as slate and smalt, red ochre and lapis lazuli, or raw umber and indigo with transparent red gold oxide.  Where necessary to continue forming the image after the skin has cured, these are continued a secco with the same pigments in oil and solvent.  Tititea/Mt Aspiring and Aoraki/Mt Cook appear wreathed in cloud in deference to their tapu status as ancestor brothers in Maori lore.