An Artistic Journey | Otago Daily Times Online News

Oliver Hill and Isaiah Okeroa are both Southlanders, but their journeys to discovering their niche were worlds apart.

Okelloa had always attended art school, but it wasn’t until Hill tried to study and work that he came to the conclusion that a creative profession was for him.

Originally from Queenstown, Hill dropped out of school to attend the University of Otago with a degree in marketing.

“I did it for a year and decided it wasn’t for me. I didn’t even finish the year.”

So he headed to Christchurch, where he worked as a jewelry salesman, but decided he had to do something more creative than he could.

“Something clicked. I was always creative. I decided to go to art school on an impulse.”

After experimenting with different mediums (he tinkered with jewelry making and sculpture), he found painting to be the most resonating. This is funny, he says, considering his art was “really bad” until high school.

“I couldn’t draw anything”

He started painting landscapes, but found that it didn’t suit him, so he started playing around with more abstract imagery.

“I’m trying to make more thought-provoking work. The abstract seems to work for me.”

The landscape aspect transformed into a conversation about the sensory overload of living in the city, transformed into a large canvas in vibrant oil colors.

The gigantic work adds to the looming and overwhelming sense of the city. The size also gives it a sculptural feel, he says.

“In the city there is loud noise, there are big buildings, there are bright colors and grays, there is sensory overload. I feel it.”

Each piece took months to draw and an equal amount of time to think.

“Half the time I’m painting, half the time I’m sitting and thinking. When I have an idea, I’m working on it. It’s pure impulse.”

The work also had many layers so that he would fill in parts of each piece, “erase” that section and then start over, matching those sections with the rest of the composition to work as a whole. .

The biggest challenge in his work was funding them and painting the top of the canvas to make it cohesive with the rest.

“Oil paints aren’t cheap these days. You need five tubes of oil paint for one of these and a canvas on top of it.”

Having practically completed his degree, he had plans to move to Brisbane. He decided he needed a fresh start to pursue a career in painting.

However, Okelloa planned to stay in art school for graduate studies.

His final year film was filmed in his hometown of Invercargill and features his family and places special to him, including the church where he was baptized, Oreti Beach, Sandy Point, and his life in Southland. talks about his upbringing.

“My work is very emotionally stimulating. I whakapapa to Taranaki and Waikato. This video shows that being raised away from iwi caused a disconnect with the Maori taonga.” It shows and explains how, and it’s very abstract rather than absolute.

“I want the audience to connect through the imaginary rather than the absolute.”

Okelloa’s higher education has given her a deeper understanding of the Te Ao Māori language and what it means to grow up away from iwi.

“It helped me to reconnect and bridge the gaps in my cultural identities and to start the journey.”

Featuring music from the taonga puolo, an instrument he made, the film is projected onto the Harakeke screen, which consists of four stacked 3m long woven sections anchored to the ground by rocks.

“Harakeke is a symbol of Whanau and is essential to the project. Can you smell it, flax? It adds a sensory aspect to the viewer. It is still working with the natural elements.

“Even working with flax helped me get into the Te Ao Maori perspective.”

Electronic art is new to Okelloa, who grew up loving drawing and art. He studied it for the NCEA and loved to draw, so it was inevitable that he would go to art school.

When I entered art school, I turned my attention to other media and began to dabble in video work. Discovering his ability to mix his sound and composition resonated with him, as did his ability to incorporate some of the sculptural elements he enjoyed.

“I fell in love with it. My first projection didn’t work, so this is a moment of redemption for me.”

For fellow alumnus Ana Rathbone, who grew up in Hawke’s Bay and moved to Dunedin six years ago, seeing other students’ work at previous SITE exhibitions inspired her to study art.

“I fell in love with the job.”

She will join Okelloa in graduate school next year.

“I have mixed feelings and miss creating art with my peers. We have grown incredibly close over the years working together in the studio. This is one of the reasons why I decided to come back next year.”

Painting portraits was an integral part of Rathbone’s practice, but art school allowed her to take a deeper look at various forms of abstraction.

“My paintings are vivid and interesting snapshots of the information I have absorbed in my lifetime. I use mark making, color and impasto to create this visual reality. follows the thread of what interests him, excites him, and pleases his eyes.”

She also enjoyed “balancing on a knife edge” when expressing her ideas.

“For me, the production part is finding the line between things being conscious input or not, and introducing an element of chance into the whole process. There is a real possibility that there is

She chooses to use bright neon colors because they are “refreshing” and attract attention.

“I think it is important to express my work with colors. [due to] Ability to grab attention quickly and how to evoke an audience response.

“Seeing the colors mix and create a more colorful world on the canvas gives me a certain feeling. You can also create a

look:

SITE 2022, Dunedin School of Art Public Gallery, November 18, 19 and 21.