3rd Nov, 2019 10:00
Modern & Contemporary Art
58
Newell Harry (Australia 1972-)
Untitled (Feet/Feat/Fete/Fate)
ink on Tongan Ngatu
Artwork date: 2013
ink on Tongan Ngatu
Artwork date: 2013
(1)
267 x 104 cm
Notes:
Newell Harry is an Australian artist, born to a South African mother and a Mauritian father. He deals consistently with his ancestral heritage, referencing the Cape Malay identity in many works from 2007 to 2019. Harry holds a MFA (2004) and BFA (2000) from the college of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney. In 2015 he notably exhibited at the 56th Venice Biennale, All the Worlds Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor. He was awarded the Pernod Ricard Fellowship in 2018.In the case of Untitled (Feet/Feat/Fete/Fate) and Untitled (Heat/Hate/Meat/Mate) Harry uses Ngatu, or Tapa, a Tongan cloth made by a labour-intensive process of pounding the inner bark of a Hiapo (Paper Mulberry tree) with a mallet. Once the bark is flattened, it is then bound together, using natural starches, to make large pieces of cloth. Groups of women then work to decorate the cloth with natural dyes and pigments. Once completed the cloth becomes a ‘gift-currency’, exchanged as commerce and given at pivotal moments in life like births, weddings and funerals.The geo-specific cultural value of these cloths interests Harry as much as the problematic question of authenticity caused by the impact of colonialism in the South-Pacific area. These cloths become weighted in critical meaning when displayed in the context of the contemporary art world. The Tongan value becomes a conceptual element in an aesthetic judgement. In a deeper act of subversion, Harry prints series of words on the Ngatu. Some are in the form of anagrams, ‘double entendres’, and what he defines humorously as ‘dumbed-down poetry’. His words flow rhythmically, creating a fluidity of diverse references which, given more than a moment, reveal encoded complexities on the state of global culture and the resilience of the ‘local’.The success of Harry’s art practice is predicated by his witty and honest connection with the subject and the materiality with which his work is imbued.
Joshua Stanley
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Auction: Modern & Contemporary Art, 3rd Nov, 2019
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