Joyful Resistance
Pat Hanly’s Free Pacific captures a defining moment in Aotearoa’s cultural and political history. Through vibrant colour and symbolic form, the painting channels optimism, resistance and a vision of collective freedom, transforming protest into a celebration of shared national identity.
Essay by Rachel Kleinsman
Colour, conviction and joyful activism unite in one of Hanly’s most resonant responses to the Pacific’s nuclear-free movement. Created amid a pivotal period in New Zealand history, Free Pacific transforms political resistance into a universal expression of hope.
Lot 56. Pat Hanly, Free Pacific, 1984, enamel and oil on hardboard, 900 x 1200mm. EST. $120,000—$160,000
Pat Hanly
A particular aspect of Pat Hanly’s practice reached a crescendo in the 1980s and it is one to which the term ‘exuberant activism’ may be applied. Pulsating from beneath the surface of Hanly’s paintings of this time, there is a joyful essence to be encountered and Free Pacific is no exception to this. As the painting reveals itself to the viewer, it emblazons a message of hope and resistance onto our souls.
The bold treatment of colour and form in Free Pacific is awe-inspiring, and Hanly’s reputation as New Zealand’s foremost master of colour is asserted through this work. In each abstracted icon of land and geography, we encounter the joy of our national identity: the joy of colour. Hanly has drawn on the creative liberties of collage and applied them in such a way that each form exists in a paradox of harmonious disconnect. Vivacious shades of red, blue, green and yellow coalesce herein, each seeming to hum and thrive in the potency of its own force field.
The transcendence and purity of the work also lends a deeply personal quality to the act of viewing. In perceiving the bright and modular shapes existing in choreographed dialogue across the canvas, we instinctively respond to these as emotive symbols and signposts, each relevant to our own personal quest for meaning. Free Pacific was realised at a critical moment in the unfolding of our modern national identity, when the fight to retain New Zealand’s nuclear-free status was coming to the fore. Considered in this context, the painting’s title is all encompassing; it serves, at once, as a protest banner, an imperative and an epigrammatic urging to retain our moral liberty.
Lot 55. Pat Hanly, Silver Bride with Groom, 1990, enamel on found board, 620 x 585mm. EST. $15,000—$20,000
The transcendence and purity of the work also lends a deeply personal quality to the act of viewing. In perceiving the bright and modular shapes existing in choreographed dialogue across the canvas, we instinctively respond to these as emotive symbols and signposts, each relevant to our own personal quest for meaning. Free Pacific was realised at a critical moment in the unfolding of our modern national identity, when the fight to retain New Zealand’s nuclear-free status was coming to the fore. Considered in this context, the painting’s title is all encompassing; it serves, at once, as a protest banner, an imperative and an epigrammatic urging to retain our moral liberty.
For contemporary viewers armed with the power of hindsight, it is impossible not to appreciate the timely prescience of this message — the work was completed just one year before the Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland Harbour.
Hanly’s expressions of dissent were not delivered solely via the medium of the paintbrush, by the way. He was well known for protesting from sailboats on Auckland Harbour. The stylised white form of a ship at the centre of Free Pacific may be read as a memorial of this form of water-based freedom in which the artist delighted. Ultimately, the importance of Free Pacific lies in its ability to unite us through the universality of our shared national experience. Looking beyond the immediacy of the protest at hand, there is a timelessness to the work. It serves as an affirmation of our common humanity, weaving Aotearoa’s existence into a thread of joyful and shared triumph. (Essay by Rachel Kleinsman)
Featured Auction Highlights
Lot 58. John Drawbridge Aurora, 1970, oil on canvas on board, 1730 x 2770mm.
EST. $40,000—$55,000
Lot 16. Bill Hammond, Hard Work, 1986, enamel on copper, 300 x 400mm.
EST. $20,000—$30,000
Lot 33. Andrew McLeod, Landscape with Rainbow, 2012, oil on canvas, 1940 x 1200mm.
EST. $68,000—$85,000
Lot 60. Richard McWhannell, Sunday School Picnic at Sandy Bay, 2017-18, oil on canvas board, 1220 x 1540mm.
EST. $25,000—$30,000
Pat Hanly's Free Pacific forms part of our current Works of Art Live Auction catalogue.
Works of Art, New Zealand's premier live art auction, presents a curated selection of significant artworks by leading New Zealand artists, from historic masters to major contemporary voices, reflecting the breadth and depth of art practice in Aotearoa. Supported by a nationwide exhibition tour and events programme, the sale offers collectors a rare opportunity to engage with and acquire exceptional works before they come to auction.
Live Auction | 24.08.26
Works of Art
—North Island Tour
Wellington
Launch
Wednesday 12 August, 5.30pm—7.30pm
On View
Wednesday 12—15 August
23 Marion Street, Te Aro, Wellington 6011
Auckland
Launch
Tuesday 18 August, 6pm—8pm
On View
Tuesday 18—24 August
Live Auction
Monday 24 August, 6.30pm
33a Normanby Road, Mount Eden, Auckland 1024