The Tree Collectors: Reuben Paterson
“And you, stars, the ancestors, nuclear orbs, red giants, white dwarves,
burn brilliantly, burn on the waka down there,
burn on waka riding valleys,
burn on waka in the night,
burn on waka past the end of light.”
Robert Sullivan, Waka 100, from Star Waka (Auckland University Press, 1999)
Reuben Paterson’s upcoming exhibition The Tree Collectors traces the navigation of his practice through time, and his decades long voyages through memory, land, sky, the cosmos and ancestral navigation. From here, these new works map constellations through Māori and scientific lenses, weaving black pearls, glass orbs, and painted skies into shimmering meditations on journeying.
From a vantage beneath trees, celestial lions of the constellation of Leo and hand-blown spheres evoke moments suspended between earth and sky, arrival and departure. In conversation with Robert Sullivan’s poetry, Paterson’s works shimmer with both playfulness and reverence, carrying ancestral stories forward while situating us in new constellations of place.
