Although relatively straightforward in their iconography, the Between Heaven and Earth series is rich in the art historical lineage it evokes.
Lane also references another tradition of painting, that of the Maori artists who adapted European conventions of representation in their decoration of marae and churches serving Te Kooti’s Ringatu religion.
Lane says, ‘They seem to me to be some of the best paintings to be made in Aotearoa/New Zealand in the nineteenth century … I’m trying to make paintings on similar lines, connecting what can be seen, our own context, to a larger idea of the immutability and beauty of the natural world, the need to connect with this world and bring it into a new sort of consciousness before it’s too late’.
Between Heaven and Earth II offers paintings which, while unique to their maker, allude richly to the complex heritages to which a New Zealand painter is subject by living and working fully immersed in the here and now. Edited from an essay by Peter Simpson.
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