Kelcy Taratoa: Who am I?...Episode 001

Description

Who Am I? is a question at the centre of what it is to be human and for artist Kelcy Taratoa (Ngai Te Rangi, Ngati Ranginui, Ngati Raukawa) it has formed the subject of his painting for two decades. Kelcy Taratoa: Who Am I ?... Episode 001 is a bilingual English and Te Reo publication written by Warren Feeney and translated by Heni Jacob (Ngati Raukawa). It traverses the artist's life from growing up in the suburbs of Levin to Te Haka a Te Tupere, the artist's wharenui at Rangiwaea marae in Tauranga Harbour. Through his paintings he contends that contemporary technology's virtual realities and appetite for destruction and distraction is undermining our humanity and experience of the world. Yet painting, that most ancient means of visual communication, is something that continues to remind us of our humanness.

Dr Warren Feeney has written on the visual arts for the past 30 years, with a particular interest in Aotearoa New Zealand's social and cultural histories. He is the author of OUT THERE: SCAPE Public Art 1998-2018, and of CSA: The Radical, the Reactionary and the Canterbury Society of Arts, 1880-1996 (Canterbury University Press, 2011) and the co-author, with Peter Alsop, of the biography, Marcus King: Painting New Zealand for the World (Potton & Burton, 2015). He contributes regularly to the Press, www.eyecontactsite.com and to arts publications such as Art News, World Sculpture News and Asian Art News. Warren is also the publisher and editor of Art Beat, a monthly arts newspaper established in 2018, reporting on all aspects of the visual arts in Otautahi Christchurch and Waitaha Canterbury.