2018 undiscovered artists : Ayesha Green

Abstract

Article discusses the work of artist Ayesha Green whose paintings "interrogate the history of painting" and "exacerbate tension between the idea of the 'copy' and the 'original', opening up a space to question the assumptions of authenticity and authorship within the settler artist/Indigenous subject dichotomy." Considers the diptych 'Tama Ki Hikurangi, Rēnata Kawepo', which won her the Seagers Walters Prize in 2016, and depicts Green's tipuna (ancestor) Rēnata Kawepo copied from two portraits by famed portrait artist Gottfried Lindauer. Includes mention of her 2015 painting 'Mei'.