Kota Bush - June 2023
Kota Bush completed an 10 week artist-in-residence program with the gallery, exploring his relationship to Aloe Vera.
Aloe has become a significant material and a means of connecting me to notions of balance, healing and repetitive process in real and symbolic terms. My practice brings together select- ed natural and found materials with ritualised, repetitive actions. Works come out of the daily rituals of life.
I've had the absolute pleasure of creating and exploring art making while staying at the residency in Karaka, through the people I've met through the Foenander Galleries.
During my journey there I gained inspiration from the beautiful old English garden, with such a variety of different plants, old trees and fruit trees.
Such a beautiful place to drift, wonder and create. I grew and harvested my own vegetation of Aloe-vera.
I spent 10 full weeks from the New Zealand autumn. Accompanied by tools and electric piano to play among the blooming flowers. I read by the pond, painted brushestrokes on burnt surfaces, Japanese chisels and knives to forage some bamboo and Aloe vera, a pair of running shoes to stroll around the next door paddock to see the cows and my skateboard to go visit the full pipe where I discovered some nice old concrete shapes at Clarks beach.
For my performance piece I tried to be in a way that was structured in a ritual, keeping inline with my set ideas. Staying and living in the residency alone for some time made me learn to adjust and grow, with all kinds of emotions that this builds or creates, having to relearn to place myself centered in from experience.
I made thirty works of art consistent with my practice, some experimental. They included sculptures, performances, paintings and poems. It was a very fulfilling time and I love seeing my works to this day reflecting the sense of connectivity of growth.
I am very very thankful to have spent ten weeks as the artist in residence at Fortland Park in Karaka, home to a very beautiful old Garden.
