Award-winning Israel Randell talks art, new challenges and the bigger picture
Through multi-media, moving image and sound, award-winning Tauranga artist Israel Randell articulates the spiritual and unseen. Now, in her new role as curator at Whakatāne Museum & Arts, she wants to help amplify the voices of local talent.
WORDS Maria Hoyle PHOTOS Quinn O’Connell
The question ‘what is art?’ is a tricky one to answer. One person’s masterpiece may be another’s monstrosity, making it hard to reach a consensus. Yet for multi-disciplinary artist Israel Randell, it’s not complicated at all. Art, she says, is a conversation, and as a newly appointed exhibitions curator at Whakatāne Museum & Arts, it’s one she is very much looking forward to having with the local community.
Originally from Hamilton (Tainui, Ngāti Kahungunu) and of Cook Islands descent, the mum-of-one has her work cut out for her when she arrives at her post (the week after talking to UNO). She and the team will be busy preparing for the February exhibition of the winners of the Molly Morpeth Canaday Award: Painting & Drawing, presented by Arts Whakatāne and held at Te Kōputu a te Whanga a Toi – Whakatāne Library & Exhibition Centre. Although that will be Israel’s immediate focus, she talks excitedly about the bigger picture.
“I’m really interested in being embedded in the community, getting to know the artists, and finding out how I can help them to realise their ambitions and be that person who bridges the community and the gallery,” says the Toi Ohomai Bachelor of Creative Industries graduate. “I’m also excited to be learning from my colleagues. Going into any new role, it’s good to be listening.”
Listening will be crucial for her dialogue with local artists too. Some may not see the gallery space as relevant to them – for example, those who may be more focused on selling their work, or those from other disciplines such as dance, theatre or acting.
Is it fair to say that galleries are often seen as no-go zones for certain sections of the community? “Yes,” she says decisively. “A gallery space is definitely always viewed as a white space by people outside looking in.”
So breaking down the boundaries between practices is one way not only to showcase a wider variety of work, but also to change the perception of what and who a gallery is for, of reaching those who aren’t, for whatever reason, engaging with it. “It’s constructive to help different types of creatives,” says Israel. “I think it does start with having a structure that caters to every kind of practice, not just the 2D practice or sculptural practice.”
Israel’s no stranger to having a dialogue across disciplines and amplifying the voices of indigenous artists. She arrives in her new role fresh from a Mana Moana research residency with arts agency Circuit, where she looked at the experimental practices of Māori and Pasifika visual artists, writers, choreographers and musicians to produce a collection of interviews and online content.
Israel’s own work experiments with moving image, multi-media and sound – quite a departure from the large-scale paintings she did as an art student in Auckland. “I took a break, moved to Tauranga and started off again at Toi Ohomai. But I didn’t want my work to be flat on the wall anymore – I wanted to occupy the space between the walls. I wanted to paint with light in space, so I was looking for materials that would let me do that. Lots of painters say all painting is about light and dark. I was interested in using light in a sculptural way to activate space.”
She originally considered working in neon, but it was costly. A classmate suggested wire would be cheaper, so she sourced some on Trade Me and started experimenting with it in the school studio.
Playing with wire and light sounds like a lot of fun, but it was no walk in the park. Israel’s daughter Lola, now two and a half, was just eight months old when Israel started the course. “I was still breastfeeding so I was worried. But I needed something else, a direction or passion, that was separate from my identity as a mother. I needed that for my own mental health and that in turn made me a better mother.”
It also, she believes, made her a better artist. “You go in there with no bullshit, no excuses – you get things done. You don’t have time to fluff around, then go home and work till 2am, because at home it’s all about your child. So I was way more focused. I think that drive elevated my art practice to something it maybe couldn’t have been when I was a single person.”
“I didn’t want my work to be flat on the wall anymore – I wanted to occupy the space between the walls.”
That ‘elevated something’ is a compelling body of work that speaks clearly to ‘maatauranga’ – what she describes as “the whole way of being Māori, the many layers that there are.
“I look a lot to cosmological narratives to explore things that aren’t material,” she says. “I’m interested in actualising the intangible. It’s hard… I don’t know if I’m successful half the time. This year’s body of work has focused on water and the elemental phases it goes through, and the spiritual things they hold for Māori and Pasifika people. I’m interested in exploring things that I can’t see that have been told by generations of elders, and trying to connect with it and make sense of it in my own way.”
Israel might not know if she’s successful half the time, but her work certainly impressed the judges of the 2020 Miles Art Award, presented In March by the Tauranga Art Gallery Toi Tauranga. To her surprise, she landed the Supreme Award for Wahi Ngaro, a compelling installation in which triangles of electroluminescent wire reference whakapapa and an in-between space with infinite potential. It’s a beautiful piece, one you can appreciate without knowing what it represents. Does it bother her when she’s asked to explain her work?
“If people do ask me, I want to have a conversation,” she says. “That’s really all art is, a conversation. The artwork is there to trigger that. Sometimes it’s real honest conversations, like, ‘What the hell is that?’ or ‘Why do I hate this work so much?’” That’s the kind of things that artwork brings.”
And then sometimes the work exists, well, just because. “Sometimes we totally make it because we want to make it. It’s important to let people know that and uncomplicate the way we speak.”
Featured in UNO Issue #51 - subscribe to get yours
