Lorene taurerewa biography of donald
Artist Lorene Taurerewa had only been back in NZ from her Kathmandu Contemporary Arts Centre residency for a month when the devastating 7.8 earthquake hit Nepal on 25 April. It killed 8800 people, injured 23,000 and destroyed heritage sites, including where Lorene lived in Patan.
Lorene is one of 40 New Zealand artists auctioning their work for the Himalayan Trust at Gus Fisher Gallery this week.
She tells us about her time in Nepal and how you can help.
She continues to stay in touch with friends in Nepal including Sanjeev Maharjan, Kathmandu Contemporary Arts Centre residency manager, who has shared these photos taken in Patan May 2015.
Tell us a little bit about your background
My family are from Wanganui. Both of my parents were involved in the arts, my father Steve Clotworthy was a painter, he trained at the Slade School of Arts in London and my mother Virginia was a musician and singer. I am third eldest of ten children, who all are very creative people living interesting lives. For the last nine years I have lived in New York.
Why did you apply for a residency at Kathmandu Contemporary Arts Centre? What drew you to Nepal?
In 2006 I met a Nepali artist Bidhata KC while on an art residency in Seoul, Korea. We talked a lot about Kathmandu and I got a sense of it being very exotic and left field, which triggered my imagination. Over the years I never stopped thinking about it and after seeing a show of Buddhist Thangka paintings in New York I made a decision to go. It was the best decision I ever made!
How long were you there and what did the residency involve?
I was in Kathmandu for three months on a residency at the Kathmandu Contemporary Art Centre. Initially, it was a six week residency, but I loved it so much I stayed on. My studio space was in the grounds of the Patan Museum in a quiet and peaceful setting and allowed me to work with little distraction. I produced quite a lot of work.
Tell us about the works you created and “We came back because of Covid and then just never left. “I found it almost impossible at first to adjust to being back here. New York was filled with art galleries, plus we travelled around a lot to places like Sweden or Norway.” Taurerewa has exhibited internationally in Australia, the United States and China. She was awarded a residency at The National Artists Studio by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea and exhibited at the Schick Art Gallery and Kentler International Drawing Centre in New York. But her childhood was spent in Whanganui, where she studied formally as an artist at the Quay School of the Arts. At age 12, she often made visits to the Sarjeant Gallery. “As a girl living in small-town New Zealand, I was lucky enough to see art in that environment.” Her large-scale paintings and charcoal drawings are often based on model figurines arranged on a tabletop, with characters from movies or her life – such as her beloved dog Max – woven into the complex narratives. “I usually don’t think too far outside the things that interest me in my work, and I’m looking very much at family, everyday existence and popular culture. “I don’t search too far for my subject matter, I don’t feel I have to.” Taurerewa said living in America made her a “crazy movie person” – she loves horror films. “I stick to myself, I’m a loner, I like to be by myself and make my work.” She said her works were linked thematically and often featured the same recurring symbol of the tabletop. “The tabletop acts as a psychological, inescapable world, where the characters who populate the tabletop are fated to be together all the time.” Taurerewa said Whanganui needed more art galleries, especially dealer galleries. “The thing about big public galleries is that their shows stay for a long time, but if we had some dealer galleries they just would be constantly moving people through. In 1996, New Zealand-born Lorene Taurerewa graduated BFA (Painting) from the Quay School of Fine Arts, Wanganui. Two years later she graduated with a Diploma of Teaching, (Secondary Fine Art) from Massey University, and in 2001 spent a year of study in an MA Programme at the Auckland University of Technology. She has received numerous grants and a number of awards including, in 1997, winning the Martin Hughes Contemporary Pacific Art Award. From 2001-2008, Taurerewa held the position of Lecturer for Drawing, School of Design, Victoria University, Wellington. Her drawings can range from monumental (2m high) charcoal portraits with a commanding presence, to works on paper on a delicate scale, suspended in groups from the ceiling . Taking inspiration from her Samoan, Chinese and European ancestry, Taurerewa weaves personal and family historical narrative into her powerful drawings. She is now working and exhibiting in New York, as well as maintaining an exhibition presence in New Zealand. GALLERIES SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY "My four times great grandmother in the 1800s wrote and illustrated letters home to Ireland about her life in a "Strangely Beautiful" land. I liked the way she recorded and shaped her narratives in pen on paper, similar to my own way of working. Enquire about works for purchase Lorene Taurerewa has exhibited in private, public and museum galleries including: The Kentler International Drawing Center, New York, Schick Art Gallery, New York, McLean Projects for the Arts, Washington DC, Fountain/Armory Art Fair, New York, Miami Art Fair, Miami, USA, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, Waikato Museum, New Zealand, Pataka Museum, New Zealand, Wellington City Gallery, New Zealand and more recently with the He Xiangning Museum, Shenzhen, China.Artist Lorene Taurerewa on why she’s come back to Whanganui from New York
Helen Gory Gallery, Melbourne
Mark Amery, ‘The Otherworldliness of Lorene Taurerewa’, Dominion Post, ARTS, April 2009
Warwick Brown, ‘Seen this Century’, Random House, New Zealand, 2009
Mark Amery, ‘Samoan Shadow Play’ Dominion Post, May 2008
ArtAsiaPacific, Almanac, New York, pg 251 2007
Wolgan Misool, Korean Arts Monthly Magazine, February issue pp. 55, Korea 2007
‘No Made’ Catalogue: The National Arts Studio: National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea, 2007
Spasifik Magazine ‘Connecting with the Past’, January\February, PP 90, 2007
Rebecca Rice, ‘Julian Dashper, Te huringa/Turning Points, Lorene Taurerewa’, Art New Zealand: pp. 44-45 Spring Issue 2006
Exhibition Catalogue, Journey of 1000 Miles, Sarjeant Gallery, Wai-te-ata Press, Victoria University of Wellington, 2006
Exhibition Catalogue, ‘IASK’ Curated by The National Arts Studio: National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Kor Lorene Taurerewa - Strangely Beautiful
The drawings in this show are guided by a series of pen drawings titled "Life in a Box", a kind of daily drawn visual diary, recording narrative imagery in pen on paper. Drawn from memory, popular culture, family narratives and everyday existence, these drawings have taken on a life of their own, including characters and scenes shaped and formed from imagination.
The large charcoal drawings are an extension of the pen drawings, a re-imagining of the characters into new narratives. The pen drawings are the life force of my practice and over time has accumulated into a large cache stored in a box, hence "Life in a Box”
Taurerewa is part of private and public collections, with recent acquisitions including the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia, The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia and the James Wallace Arts Trust, New Zealand. She is the recipient of awards including Creative New Zealand Arts Council Grants and was awarded an artist in residency at the IASK Residency, The National Artists Studio: National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea