Back to nature

Printmaker Jo Ogier has taken a step on to the wild side with her latest works embracing paint and ceramics in re-creating the flora and fauna of Maruawai — the Mataura River Valley. She talks to Rebecca Fox about the three-year project.

Jo Ogier is never more happy than when getting out in nature.

Tramping along river edges and through bushland taking in the plants and animals around her, Ogier is busy storing ideas and details away to use in her art later on.

When she first saw a kanakana (lamprey) in the Mataura River she was so excited.

"They’re just so different — they’re so prehistoric looking. I just found them absolutely fascinating to learn about."

The kanakana are one of 150 species Ogier, a botanical and wildlife artist, has painted as part of "He Wai Apakura — Te Ara Pounamu, The River’s Lament — A Pathway of Treasures", a three-year project in conjunction with the Eastern Southland Art Gallery as part of its 40th anniversary programme.

"I spent a lot of time up in the Hokonuis — that is such a beautiful place — and spent a bit of time wandering down the river and looking."

It has resulted in Christchurch-based Ogier taking a bird’s-eye view of the Mataura River catchment — literally from a seat in a Tiger Moth — as well as do a deep dive into the flora and fauna that has inhabited the catchment since people began occupying the region.

"The really important thing is there’s just not the original vegetation and a lot of species are already gone."

So using oral histories from Hokonui Runanga to establish what was there originally and with a list of plants original to the area from Invercargill field botanist Brian Rance from Southland Community Nursery and assistance from the Department of Conservation, Ogier decided to map the river catchment by painting the species that live in the river or could be returned to it.

"Soon my list of species just started growing and I ended up with a really big list."

She had to reduce the list to a manageable level so decided to only paint the species that could be put back, not those that were extinct.

"It would have been great to incorporate the Haast eagle and the little moa and all those things but it was becoming too big."

In the end she whittled the list down to 190 species, which she painted in their habitats along the river.

"Part of the challenge was actually incorporating them into an image for each panel that would make sense."

She broke the species down into groups based on the mahinga kai sites along the river and used oral histories as a guide as many place names came from the kai found there.

"Really it was a continuous pathway where they would have gathered resources all the way along between the sites. The place names were a great key. Like Kowhaka-ruru, which is the home of the morepork. So I knew to put morepork at Pyramid Hill."

While many species would have been found at multiple sites, Ogier was only able to include them once. It was important for her to draw all the plants from actual specimens and she liked to do that in the field when she could.

"I just spent a lot of time wandering around looking for plants. Then had a lot of help from the different native plant nurseries and different people who would hack a bit of their plant in the garden or something like that. So most of the plants were drawn, apart from one, were drawn from life."

She also sought out the bird species that way and took photographs to refer to back in the studio. She also relied on museum specimens to get the details of feathers right.

To get the insects right required research and searching on the internet for images.

"It was important to me that you could look at each species and identify what they are from the painting. I was into the detail, so it’s funny, you’ve got to push yourself back sometimes and say, ‘no, that’s enough’."

A love of stones is also reflected in the works as Ogier decided to incorporate them into the works to finish off the works.

"The stones are so beautiful from that river. I used a little splash of river water when I was mixing the watercolours from the river so that would be part of the works as well. So it tells the river’s story."

Ogier used a combination of watercolour, gouache and liquid acrylic to create the scenes and each site is represented on a large panel, which took a month to finish, the panels being set out on a 16m wall. She also sculptured 32 air-dried clay kanakana which weave their way in and out of the works.

"So all the works sort of go up and down on the wall, just like the river goes up and down."

Some of the views are painted as if the viewer is looking through the water to the land, an approach she believes came from the Tiger Moth flight the Eastern Southland Gallery organised for her which took her over the Mataura River catchment and following the Waimumu Stream into the Hokonuis.

"It was really from the air that you got that idea of the snaking river or moving river. It felt very much like the way the tuna, or eels or the kanakana swim. So that is why I decided the works should go up and down on the walls."

The kanakana were quite a challenge for the artist, more known for her printmaking. While she originally hoped to have them cast it was not practical, so she hand-made them. Working in clay is something she has not done since she was an art student.

"It did take quite a lot of experimenting to get it there. I think it actually helps that they are all different. We started naming them toward the end."

She had also intended to paint them in their real-life colours but a chance glance at them all in their silver underpaint changed her mind.

"I was like ‘oh I don’t need to paint these, they’re working’. I think they would have fought to much with the art work if I had done what I’d originally thought."

The painting was also a change for her — she is more used to woodcutting and wood carving for prints — although earlier in her career she did postgraduate study in plant and wildlife illustration in Australia, which came in very handy for this project.

"I really enjoy using all three mediums and they all have their strengths. It’s been good. I’ve had a bit of practice now. So I’m looking forward to doing some new work as well. It’s exciting."

She also enjoyed the opportunity to work with primary school children on the Mataura River project.

"It’s just that whole trying to get them to connect back into the environment and connect to their river and know what species are there or could be there or what was there and what hopefully can be there again. So trying to embed some of that early on."

Ogier says she has thoroughly enjoyed the project and the time in nature it has afforded her, something she has always treasured since her days growing up in Nelson down by rivers as her father gold prospected, going sea fishing and tramping in the bush.

"I think Dad certainly wanted us to be able to survive if we were ever lost in the bush. So we had a lot of bushcraft skills, and that was taught to us quite young."

That alongside her mother’s home crafts encouraged her creative side, so she decided to study art at university when she left school. However, she was not quite ready for it and left after a year to work and travel before deciding to have another go at studying, this time at the Dunedin School of Art.

"I was very lucky to have Marilyn Webb as my mentor in printmaking. I had gone down there originally to do ceramics, but drifted more towards printmaking."

Webb also had a close relationship with the Mataura River Valley. In 1974 she and Anna Gorham and Karen Taiaroa-Smithies of Te Whanau o Hokonui explored the river in a project that became Webb’s Mataura River Suite.

After her DSA study Ogier did the illustration course at Newcastle University in Australia and came back to Dunedin, where she eventually set up a printmaking studio with Inge Doesburg and did that for 10 years. She also completed her master’s under Webb in 2000.

Over the years her projects have often led her to more remote corners of New Zealand such as the subantarctic islands, Rakiura/ Stewart Island, Fiordland and the South Island high country.

Much of her work got put on the back burner to finish the Mataura River project, so now she hopes to get back to working with some beautiful old New Zealand nautical maps and travelling to spots on them to illustrate what is there.

"I’ve done quite a few of those and I’m going to carry on with that series."

TO SEE: 

Jo Ogier, "He Wai Apakura — Te Ara Pounamu, The River’s Lament — A Pathway of Treasures", Eastern Southland Gallery, until February 16.