2023 – “All-at-Once-ness” – solo Homestead Galleries, Corbans Art Estate, Tāmaki Makaurau

2023, Paintings

✴︎

2.26.2023

All-at-once-ness is an exhibition of paintings by Jana Wood (Ngati Raukawa ki te tonga/Ngati Pakeha) and is the result of an ongoing fascination with Colin McCahon’s 1971 little-known series of works on paper, produced soon after moving to work from his studio at Muriwai.

For Wood, this project-turned-exhibition had its inception a few years back, prompted by an encounter with two of Colin McCahon’s 1971 works on paper, “A poem of Kaipara Flat” and “Evening Muriwai” at Pah Homestead in Tāmaki Auckland. This encounter marked the genesis of Wood’s journey. As the pandemic took hold, she relocated to Port Waikato on the west coast, where the influence of McCahon’s paintings continued to shape her creative research.

In the development of All-at-once-ness, Wood sustained her immersion and connection with place. Using light layers of oil paint on traditional rabbit-skin gesso, painted onto MDF or recycled timbers, Wood’s focus shifts away from mere “views” to the intricate tapestry of daily phenomena that surrounds her. It’s the perpetual cycle of accumulating and receding sands, the graceful dance of the sky’s currents, the restless undulation of the sea, and the commanding presence of the Waikato Awa that take centre stage. And with that – a storm warning. The rising sea-levels and the constant, damaging erosion.

Nina Dyer, Art Curator and critic, wrote…

“As a series, All-at-once-ness is a testament to the notion of artist as conduit, channelling sense information, history and embodied knowledge from their surroundings and filtering it though the alchemical business of form and texture”

Read Nina Dyer’s essay on All-at-once-ness here.