Shane Cotton was the 1998 recipient of the prestigious Frances M. Hodgkins Fellowship at Otago University in Dunedin. A year away from his responsibilities as a lecturer of Maori Visual Arts at Massey University gave him the opportunity to develop a remarkable series of paintings that were exhibited together at the Hocken Library upon the completion of his fellowship. Tekau ma ono developed out of the series of works which explore political and cultural history in New Zealand using folk art imagery. The naïve and naturalistic imagery has become, in his hands, part of the imagery that underpins the best of Cotton’s oeuvre. His rich iconography is intertwined with his work’s visual appeal, and strong compositional construction, creating a collection of paintings whose images have strong connections to our identity.
A motif he utilised is that of the reinterpretation of the Ringatu figurative plant paintings in the Rongopai meeting house near Gisborne. The pot plant “… is an image that carries associations of land containment, nurture and ownership. The image works on a political and spiritual level.”1 Tekau ma ono is amongst the most complex of these depictions. Formalised in the manner of an espaliered tree, the plant’s natural growth pattern rigidly adheres to an unnatural format. The branches form shallow shelves, the “…elongated branches recalling Gordon Walters’ treatment of the koru”.2 Each branch ends in a koru bulb which itself contains a small landscape, a vignette, part of the vast library of iconographic images Cotton employs time and again: mountains, branches and the breaking dawn. The radiating branches also take on aspects of horizon lines, ruled lines in a notebook, or the ribbed roof line of the meeting house, along which are depicted landscape elements and text. The format also brings to mind the structure of a family tree, and Cotton has stated that the lines also “represent the individualisation of the Maori Lands Act which attempted to destroy the communal basis of Maori life”.3 The sepia hues characteristic of the works from this series lend an aura of age and gravity, while the repetition of the visual imagery encourages the viewer to truly consider how entwined and yet distinct the pakeha and Maori cultures have become. The Auckland Art Gallery holds perhaps the most recognisable of these paintings, the Untitled Chrysanthemum (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 1994) with the large pot and free-form plant, which now become more formalized in Tekau ma ono.
Works such as Tekau ma ono represent Cotton's exploration of the cultural and social history of Aotearoa. The Maori adaptation of pakeha domestic images, such as the potted plant, into their visual library during the 19th century was undeniably a departure from traditional carving motifs. Cotton's appropriation of this iconography into modern practice is perhaps an attempt to reconcile the past with the present. In the midst of the Maori land settlements prevalent during the past decade; they are certainly a profound reminder of what our own legacy will be for future generations.

Emma Fox

1.Tyler, Linda. Shane Cotton, Hocken Library, 1998, p. 35.
2. Ibid, p. 35.
3. Ibid, p. 11.