Illustrated: Ikon Fine Arts, Don Binney, exhibition catalouge, October 1964, 50 guineas. Herald, Picture of the Week, September 1964. Listener, front cover, December 1968. Heritage Magazine, issue 79, 1973. 40 Modern New Zealand Paintings, Francis Pound, Penguin, 1985, pl. 4. Don Binney, NGA MANU/NGA MOTU -- BIRDS/ISLANDS, Damien Skinner, Auckland University Press, 2003, pl. 12

Painted when Don Binney was in his early twenties, Kotare over Ratana Church, Te Kao, 1964, combines the elements for which the artist is best known and acclaimed – a native bird flying above a characteristic New Zealand landscape, in this case with the added interest of a Ratana Church. The painting was first exhibited in Binney’s one-man show at Ikon Fine Art, Auckland, in October 1964 and reproduced in its catalogue. Priced at 50 guineas, it was to be sold only on condition that it was available for inclusion in Contemporary New Zealand Painting at the Commonwealth Institute, London, the following year. Already it appears that it had been singled out as an exceptional work. It was bought from the show by Dick Scott, journalist and historian, who has kept it in his collection until the present day.
In 1989, Don Binney recalled the supportive art environment of the 1960s when “one’s creativity was reinforced by an inquiring, literate and relatively homogeneous art scene. As often as not, a painting would be bought by another teacher, artist or writer as a gesture of collegial support as with Dick Scott’s purchase of Kotare over Ratana Church, Te Kao.” Binney was then based in Auckland, though he spent “as much time as possible” on the West Coast at Bethells Beach, Te Henga. But it was pointed out in the exhibition catalogue that “a number of other sources of reference can be found in his work, for Binney and his wife move around the country a great deal”. Such was the case in this work with its Northland setting.
The catalogue text also gives some valuable insights on his ideas: “Don Binney’s paintings are indigenous to this country. They do not pretend, in their frequent use of land and bird forms, to stress an obvious symbolism of New Zealand – they are not self-consciously New Zealand in any literary sense. They are images, directly stated, of forms familiar to and closely observed by the artist as ingredients of an intimate environment.” The Ratana Church, however, does have specific New Zealand connotations and meanings, both cultural and historical. With this building’s twin towers inscribed Arepa and Omeka, Maori transliterations of the Greek words Alpha and Omega (beginning and end), and the star and crescent visible above the Arepa turret, symbolic of holiness and enlightenment, it does represent a unique accommodation of Maori, Jewish and Christian spirituality and beliefs.
Prominent in the painting is a close-up view of a kingfisher (kotare) flying over the land and passing in front of the church with its open beak suggesting that it is emitting a cry. The New Zealand kingfisher is a small bird, of an average size of 19 to 25 centimetres, noted for its green/blue colouration. It occurs widely throughout the country and adapts to a range of habitats. Binney makes the kingfisher appear large and prominent by presenting it very close to the picture surface, as if viewed through an ornithologist’s binoculars. Cropping it by the picture frame enhances the effect of movement. Because we see the bird from below, the pale colouring of its underbelly takes precedence over the green/blue plumage of its head and upper body. He simplifies the form of the kingfisher, as he does the Ratana Church and the landscape. The imagery is all connected by a scaffolding of black outlines that links the clearly defined parts rather like the pieces of a stained glass window. While being figurative and accessible to the viewer, Binney’s imagery shows a knowledge of contemporary developments like formal abstraction and perhaps Pop Art. He attends to the shapes, lines and patterns with variations of handling including the use of palette knife and directional brush marks. Everything is ultimately referred back to the picture surface, undiminished by the atmospheric and perspectival effects of earlier realists. It is hard-edged and crisp looking even when compared with works by Rita Angus and Christopher Perkins.
Kotare over Ratana Church, Te Kao is a pivotal work in the emergence of contemporary New Zealand painting in the early 1960s. It was totally in tune with the taste and theories of the time as represented by the Auckland Art Gallery director Peter Tomory, the influential critic Hamish Keith and enterprising dealers like Don Wood and Barry Lett. Works such as this established Don Binney as a major artist and helped make Auckland the leading art centre of New Zealand.

Michael Dunn