Ruth Watson

Tour of New Zealand

Artwork Detail

Ruth Watson’s Tour of New Zealand seems to be an exercise in nostalgia: replicating a popular board game of the 1950s, it invites players to move through a succession of familiar tourist destinations. However, in Watson’s version, travelling this well-trodden path also means contending with a strange undergrowth of unsettling text. The surface of the painting peels back, as words like ‘unexplorable’ and ‘denied all legitimacy’ rise to the surface and begin seeping across the chocolate-box landscapes with their population of pink-skinned,

faceless people.

Title
Tour of New Zealand
Artist/creator
Ruth Watson
Production date
1989
Medium
acrylic and mixed media on board
Dimensions
1300 x 1340 mm
Credit line
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 1993
Accession no
1993/4
Copyright
Copying restrictions apply
Department
New Zealand Art
Display status
Not on display

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