PEATA LARKIN

Delicately and meticulously constructed, Peata Larkin’s new light-boxes are highly individualised artworks. The richly woven paint surfaces are achieved by stretching a mesh over a frame where the warp remains rigid and the weft is worked and manoeuvred to create the desired pattern. The surface is then built up through successive applications of white acrylic that leaves some areas open and some completely blocked out. Those open spaces are then filled in with a liquid pigment mixed with a transparent gel. The painted surface is cut from this original armature and re-stretched onto a bespoke aluminium z- clamped frame on which flexiface, a light diffusing membrane, is stretched over beforehand. The resulting under pattern and the overlaid lattice of paint pays homage to the traditional tukutuku art form of her Maori heritage with the works being loosely based around the Patikitiki pattern. Further inspiration is drawn from the natural world, with each work representing a celestial object such as a galaxy, star, constellation, or interstellar cloud, and their observed properties inform the colour and thickness of the paint that Larkin uses. Indeed, the painted light-boxes are richly evocative both in process and visual outcome. The use of a threaded ground and the artful manipulation of certain strands recall European tapestry and lace making traditions while, visually, the works reference contemporary advancements in medicine and computer science with prominent echoes of genetic sequences, source codes, and digital pixels. The final result reveals a sculptural use of paint, with pigment pushed proud of the surface ground.