May His Light Shine (Tau Cross)

This is one of Colin McCahon’s last landscapes of urban Auckland. The idea for the work began from the fact that the artist’s son had almost transformed his parents’ Muriwai home into a nursery for young kumara plants.

As well, the artist was fascinated with the ancient taumata atua (fertility stone) that is named Rongo that rests in Cornwall Park. The stone is a spiritual conduit for a garden’s fecundity. McCahon recognised that Auckland once had extensive kumara gardens because of the region’s fertile volcanic soil.

(Local Atlas, 2004)

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