The making of art is a social activity of communication and comment. At the heart of its endeavour the artist is involved in a communal act of releasing ideas, feelings, and points of view, and doing so in a way which necessarily must be individual, unique and idiosyncratic whilst also achieving stylistic and attitudinal coherence. Great art transforms its own materiality and comes to have a life of its own. Its sum is much greater than its constituent parts. But it comes from somewhere and that is the milieu of when and where it is made.

At the heart of Niki Hastings-McFall’s art is a recomposition of mass produced flowers which can be purchased anywhere and everywhere. Added to this (as in behind) is light. Put together with delicacy, purpose and social vision we see transformation occur.

There are two separate but inter-related bodies of work in Seeing the Light – tondo’s and light boxes. Each of these is redolent with multiple layers of meanings and symbolic languages. They are also (it must be stated) collectively and individually very beautiful. There is no doubt that there is celebration, love and beauty present.

Yet there are other things, too. The lei has long been recognised as one of the most potent of all Pacific emblems but while expressive of love and welcome, it became to Christian missionaries a symbol of promiscuity and a battleground for hearts and minds. Christianity – so embraced in the Pacific cultures – sought to civilise through a variety of processes, including (most insidiously) denial by dismantling “indigenous belief systems and cultural practises”. (1)

One of the most profound effects of colonialism and missionisation of the Pacific “has been the move by many Islanders into urban areas” (2) to such an extent that Auckland is now the single largest Polynesian population centre anywhere in the world. This in turn has had obvious, continuous effects upon New Zealand identity to the unquestionable extent that “home” is now “here” in the South Pacific, no longer “there” as in somewhere off Europe.

Niki Hastings-McFall’s use of mass produced flowers reflects this urbanisation, the advent of material culture and comments directly on it. She uses crosses as both a historical and colonial emblem and also as a spiritual symbol of hope and love. She is “exploring the complicated intersections of culture and identity.” (3)

“At the heart of these works is the unexpected animation of the blossoms by florescent light. There is something about their being disconnected from the more usual environments and ways of presentation (the lei) that enforces the power of these objects, because it startles us into thinking about the flowers differently.” (4)

1. Caroline Vercoe, “Shadow Catchers & Suburban Sublimation,” Object.
2. Ibid.
3. Damian Skinner, “Illuminating History,” Fl/oral Histories, 2002.
4. Ibid.