Gareth Williams

From the Introduction to the Exhibition:

Incident Light, indirect light, light received back, scattered through the atmosphere. The light from a southern window - gentle and delicate - it picks out soft form and muted colours. A metaphor for a personal return - travels and 'another life' overseas - reflecting here on the landscape and what it means to me - 'my own, my native land'.

Returning from London I am fascinated by a landscape that is both harsh and rugged, yet also beautiful. often scarred by human activity, yet also untouched in parts. I often wonder where all the people are and am surprised by the emptiness of places. There is an almost overwhelming sense of isolation, isolation which is the essence of the Antipodes. Yet often it feels warm and welcoming, familiar - but also underscored with a feeling of separation, anxiety at feeling somewhat at odds with a mainstream culture, and a culture careless of visual impacts. I can walk on an empty beach, moonlight reveals the shape of rocks and casts a luminous haze over the sand and I am seduced to believing that this will always be here, untouched yet accessible, undamaged and forever preserved.

I, too, reflect on my childhood impressions of this landscape - the 'Sugar Loaves' (Moturoa), Paritutu and Mt Taranaki. The haunting and bittersweet recollections of childhood in a place of exceptional scenic beauty - yet this is often compromised by human activity - such as rusting oil rigs, a giant chimney stack and an intrusive, stark breakwater.

I revisit the land forms at Karekare and Titirangi. Recently to the indented hilly landscape of Waiheke, engulfed in blue yet felled flat and carelessly urbanized in a makeshift way. Yet, here again, in this landscape, are islands and headlands casting a clear first impression which seems untouched and unassailable.

Colin McCahon first showed us a structural New Zealand landscape and I have been keen to refer to this as a 'way in' to our landscape. I am also aware of the loose, more colourist landscapes of Woollaston and other New Zealand painters. Re-stating here some of those approaches - but also reinterpreting with a sense of isolation - a landscape which bore and has shaped me but which also, on another level, refuses and alienates me.

I hope you enjoy these reflections, these simple interpretations of a landscape cast in incident light.