This particular work was one of the most hyped pieces of newly acquired art in the SLAM collection in 2019, and with good reason: it is absolutely beyond visually striking. Beyond its visual appeal, its cultural impact is like a meteor strike in this city: this is not just a painting. This is a movement, a symphony, a riot in C Major.
Tag: 21st century
Friday
I must be a complete weirdo because this is reminiscent of a bird; the shape, the strata, the overall… it’s very birdlike. I enjoy the variegation of the color and the texture and mixed media weaving throughout the piece. It’s actually much larger in scale than it looks in the photo, and up close is much more fascinating. I adore everything about this.
Sunday
When they decided to start reintroducing the Oceanic art (finally) after a long absence, this was one of the new pieces to go up. I squeed loudly and promptly took like a million pictures and still didn’t capture the essence of the piece. Until you’re standing face to face with Mataora with Hei Tiki, you don’t appreciate the power flowing through the piece. It is art that is suffused with ancestral power; it comes off of it in waves. Each line is like a verse of Shakespeare, weaving an intricate poetic spell in a story that we don’t quite understand. This is one of the most important contemporary pieces in the SLAM collection, and if you don’t believe it, there’s something wrong with you.
Tuesday
This might just look like a big hunking chunk of glass, but if you look a little closer, you can see layer upon layer upon layer of copper and glass inside the greater structure. These layers are fused together to create an intimately abstract sculpture that is more than the component parts of the piece, and certainly more than just a piece of glass.