Not just a picnic

Tony Fomison spoke of his intention to make an ‘apocalyptic’ history painting for New Zealand, asserting a Māori presence on the often bare hills of New Zealand’s painting tradition. This imagined scene depicts three sets of figures among a landscape of cliffs and caves. The painting’s perspective is

constructed from within the caves, looking out into sunlight. The scene borrows heavily from a folder of clippings Fomison kept of images from sites where rock drawings had been found. In his early twenties, Fomison did formative archaeological work studying the Māori rock drawings of South Canterbury.

Despite its lack of specificity, this painting comes close to creating a mythic analogy to his study of Māori pre-history. The composition is powerfully attuned to the psychology of the figures, who are consumed by landscape.

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