Uaua on our Ao: by Heidi Brickell

Uaua on our Ao laments felt impacts of weather events with a phonetic musicality, as vowel repetitions draw the lips through 'w' sounds, bouncing seamlessly through te reo Māori and English.

Ua means to rain. Doubled up, uaua translates as hard, difficult, demanding. Both forms of the word mean muscle too. An Ao is a world, wherever one intends to draw a line around it: an inner world, a home, a community, an eco-system, a belief-system, an island, a planet. And also, meaningfully, it means to scoop up with both hands. In one sense, Brickell's title is a matter of fact mihi (acknowledgement) to the phenomenon of rainfall. Doubled up, it expresses something felt; the tears of a departed sky/father/shelter. ‘Our Ao’ is inclusive. Who is the ‘we’ indexed in ‘our’? Whose Ao’s sky is falling? Ever emergent throughout the work that probes these questions is the playful, the precious, and the irrepressible.

Through Brickell's practice and the language she applies to support it, an aptitude for slipping between Māori epistemologies and global references is fluid. Nuance and complexity abound, Brickell's works operate as webs, thriving in their porousness, their ability to connect, and to speak to multiple aspects of lived experience from the personal to the mythical to the real.

Hands and fingers have long been a central motif within the artists' practice and in Uaua on our Ao they continue to open, mirroring one another in gestures that appears to unfurl without end. A guiding rain chain slips through the centre of another work whilst linear marks found within multiple paintings are suggestive of ua itself, heavy and light, arriving clear yet creating muddiness.

Alongside Brickell's paintings (and for the first time in this Gallery space), Brickell will present her rimurapa (bull kelp) sculptural works. Drawing upon the language present within the paintings and bringing that (along with her intricate hand dyed thread work) into the space, Brickell's sculptures will be installed from the ceiling, addressing the space and speaking more fully to the dimensionality at play within the practice as a whole.

Please note, there is no exhibition opening event for this exhibition. Rather, Heidi will present an artist talk on Saturday the 19th of July between 11am-12pm in the Gallery. The Gallery will serve donuts and hot coffee, all are most welcome.