Feild trip. Te Tuhi Gallery, Pakuranga. Kurt

At the Te Tuhi Gallery we visited on thursday the 24th of march the exhibition i enjoyed most was the mexican/cuban/new zealand poster art titled Purakau. Working in the theme of Cuban Revolution poster design, 12 leading artists made works about their native beleifs, myths and ledgends.
Purakau in Maori means "lessons for life".

My favourite of these 12 artist was Xavier Meade who did two works one "Blessed virgin of the barricades" pictured above (picture stolen of Te Tuhi galleries website) and another i don't know the name of but for the sake of this article ill call it "100% NZ PURE".

In my opinion the first image was a play on the heavy christian influence in south america combined with the malicious militant connotations many people have of cuba following the revolution and even today with the high level of corruption due to the drug trade. I believe the idea of the blessed virgin of the barricades is that its a modern day saint sent to save the cubans from the guerilla warfare.

The second image depicted a watering can with a skull painted on it watering a whole bunch of broken what looked like tiki's dribbling blood off them, with the words 100% Pure New Zealand. The text describing the work talked about how New Zealand has promoted its self as a clean green country for so long that New Zealanders have started thinking that too much, when in actual fact we use 80% of the worlds 1080 supply to eradicate pests in our native bush. 1080 drops have been surrounded by controversy for years and are a key protest for environmentalists with their cry's falling on deaf ears.