Elements (2022)

Elements showcases the diverse practices of Chris Charteris, Chris Corson-Scott & Paul McLachlan, exploring how natural forces shape, change and affect our physical environment.

Using analogue film and a large-format 8 x 10 camera, Chris Corson-Scott’s exquisitely detailed photographs have an intrinsic beauty. With a haunting sense of the past, he explores how the consumption of our natural resources for financial gain has forever changed our natural environment.

A single wooden cross stands amongst the overgrowth in Kauri Driving Dam Remains…, a remainder from a driving dam built in the 1800s to force massive quantities of Kauri logs downstream. Like a marking of a grave, the cross is a stark reminder of the loss of over a million hectares of Kauri Forest from Aotearoa New Zealand.

The paint etchings of Paul McLachlan visually realise the sublime effect of nature events in motion. He explores gesture, line and shadow to express geological and climactic forces and how natural events shape our physical environment.

McLachlan has pioneered an utterly unique technique to create meticulously rendered relief artwork. Using sand, he etches into the painted surface allowing the artwork to transcend from the two dimensional into works closer to sculpture. Hidden layers of colour are exposed while light and shadow play across the canvas.

Chris Charteris celebrates nature’s hand in shaping the materials he uses. The forces of water and land have provided him with the raw materials, a starting point. He intervenes in an intuitive, subtle and considered way, revealing the unique character of our natural resources, which we often pass off as mundane.

There is an element of time passing in Charteris’ sculpture; nature’s time in the slow formation of stone, time in the hunt for and collection of each stone, time in sorting and selecting through slight variations in size and colour, time in preparing every element so it fits together so seamlessly.

Elements is a reminder of the power and fragility of the natural environment, our dependence upon it and our responsibility as kaitiaki to protect what remains for future generations.