Black Painting: Night Landscape

Ka whānau mai a Thomas Desmond Pihama i Taumaranui i te tau 1932. Ko tōna ingoa ringa toi ko Buster Black. Kei roto i tāna mahi *Black Painting: Night Landscape*, 1962 Kei te mura mai a Tāmaki Makau Rau ānō nei he papa ara iahiko, ko ana raiti itiiti he mea whakakorowai i te tirohanga. Nui atu i te haurua o te peita he rangi i te pō, e hahaetia ana e ngā ira whero me te mā, he mea mahake rawa. Ko tā te ao o te pō he uhi i ngā taipitopito āhuru – te tangata, te kāinga, te māra – kia kitea ai te tirohanga ngāwari noa mō te pō e whakapuaki ana i te mahora o te tāonenui o Tāmaki Makau Rau i ngā tau 1960. Ahakoa he itiiti noa iho ngā toi a Black e toe tonu ana, ko āna peita he tauira mō te aronga hou tonu ki te peita whakaahua taiao i tōna wā, i tēnei wā.

Thomas Desmond Pihama, known by the aritst name Buster Black, was born in Taumaranui in 1932. In his work *Black Painting: Night Landscape*, 1962 Auckland is lit up like a circuit board with an array of tiny lights that cloak the landscape. More than half the painting is night sky, with only the network of tiny red and white dots punctuating the darkness. The nocturnal world frees the painting of familiar details – people, homes and gardens – in favour of a visual simplicity where the story of night is told through the growing urban sprawl of 1960s Auckland. Although few of Black’s works have survived, his paintings nonetheless represent an entirely fresh approach to landscape painting both when they were made and now.

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