Exhibitions

Wellington

Roger Mortimer Pito-one: At the end of the beach

Bartley & Company Art 29 September–23 October

PHYLLIS MOSSMAN

Seven hundred years after the death of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) it is fitting that Roger Mortimer’s exhibition vividly reimagines danteisms’ that reflect our own inevitable journey towards death. Dante’s medieval world view expressed in the was fraught with political struggles and underpinned by a strong Catholic ethos shaped by precepts of a journey towards salvation or damnation. The poet’s two main literary models—Virgil’s epic poem the and the Bible—were also based on death and journeys. Likewise, Mortimer’s works abound with images of death, judgement and journeying. The Māori name Pito-one can translate as ‘end of the sand beach’, hence the exhibition’s title. Mortimer declared, ‘Death being a major theme in most of my work . . . to me resonated with the end of a journey . . . like one’s life.’ Mortimer often chooses his coastal settings for their significant historical events. The principal work in the show is . Mapped from early navigational charts, Pito-one (Petone) the site of the pā of Honiana Te Puni, significant to Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o te Ika, was once covered with forest and flax swamps. Clues to European settlement from 1840 are the dearth of