Columbus Sydrome - Napier Street Artist JR

“I started to read and create work around the history of Aotearoa's history in the effort to find where I belong - my whakapapa - as I grow into myself as a Pakehā male in Aotearoa.

The underlying motive behind these works is to use familiar imagery in a potentially uncomfortable manner in order to raise questions and conversations around our ideas of ownership and unity in a ‘post-colonial’ environment. The methodology seemed a natural way to question the lurking sense of disenfranchisement and cultural illiteracy that is still our reality.

Until we take responsibility to learn our own history, stop denying our past and question the way we are moving into the future, the social cohesion we seek will remain a facade.”- JR

I am a human and a street artist, I attempt to communicate ideas and emotions via visual mediums, working collaboratively with both the subject and the material's pre-existing wairua.