Shannon Te Ao: Untitled (McCahon House Studies)

Overview

The presence of Colin McCahon. He's felt in the long walk along Muriwai beach. In the rolling hills of Nelson and Canterbury. For artists awarded the McCahon House Residency his presence is felt in the months they spend living and working in McCahon's former home in the Titirangi bush. However, 2016 Walter's Prize winning artist Shannon Te Ao wasn't invited into McCahon's house as a resident, he invited himself in.

In the house where McCahon lived with his wife and children and made some of his most important works, Te Ao films himself performing a series of domestic rituals that are somehow mundane and strange at the same time. Te Ao's performance gives you a sense of McCahon's own disciplined and obsessive art-making process which started early in the day and went until late at night. Shannon Te Ao's video performance piece is screening in the City Gallery Wellington cinema alongside the exhibition Colin McCahon: On Going Out with the Tide.

Image: Shannon Te Ao: Untitled (McCahon House Studies) 2011. Courtesy Robert Heald Gallery.