The Art World According to Maya Love
An interview with Maya Love – Writer, artist, and current PhD candidate at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland
As part of our upcoming June Select auction, Webb's is excited to present a live talk from Tāmaki Makaurau-based Maya Love.
A writer, artist, and current PhD candidate in the Art History department at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, Maya is an incredible talent with a deep knowledge of contemporary art in Aotearoa. So who better to talk enthusiasts through the works in the Select catalogue and how they reflect our country’s art history?
Art in Aotearoa: A Brief History will take place at our Auckland gallery from 6.30pm Tuesday 6 June – you can still register to come along. Ahead of the event, we caught up with Maya to learn a bit more about her, her interest in the grotesque and gothic, and her top picks from the Select catalogue.
Hi Maya, we are so excited to have you speak at Webb’s next week. For those who may not be familiar with your work, could you please provide an overview of your academic and professional background?
I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a minor in English, a Bachelor of Arts (Honours – First Class) in Art History. I’m currently a PhD candidate in the Art History department at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland.
My BA (Hons) dissertation won the Adrienne Jarvis Prize in Art History (2019). This research, titled Corporeal Encounters, offered a phenomenological investigation of the corpse across select works by American photographer, Sally Mann, and Mexican interdisciplinary artist, Teresa Margolles. My PhD continues this thread–it considers how we feel when confronted with the corpse in contemporary artworks, linking to abject, grotesque, and gothic theory.
Professionally, I like to say I’m good with pictures, people, prose, and planning. I’ve amassed five years of experience in various arts environments, specialising in marketing, programming, and stakeholder relationships. In a past life, I was an actor and producer. Over that time, I’ve worked with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, Q Theatre, and South Pacific Pictures.
Currently, I’m a PhD-educator-writer-hybrid. This semester, I’ve been lucky enough to be the Graduate Teaching Assistant for a paper on Art Crime, and to guest lecture on Pop Art and Conceptual Art. Much to my surprise, I’ve loved teaching, so I’m hoping for more of that in the future. My writing practice is fairly broad, but I’m happiest when I can bring art closer to someone–allowing them to see it in a different light, make sense of it, and enjoy it. Recent writing has been featured by The Art Paper, Broadsheet, Sanderson Contemporary, Art Toi, and the Govett-Brewster Gallery.
What drew you to a career in art?
I don’t see a disconnect between the ‘art world’ and the wider creative scene that encompasses music, tv and film, theatre, writing, poetry, design, gaming – I could go on.
My first real job was as an actor, and that kind of gig is as much talent as it is right-place, right-time, so I somewhat stumbled into an arts career. I’ve been very fortunate to try on a variety of different arts jobs for size, before pursuing postgraduate study in art history.
Over-analysing is part of my DNA, so from a practical perspective, I think I’m monetising my natural skillset. On a more serious note, I think art has an uncanny ability to communicate something that’s difficult to articulate, to open up other worlds, but to also reflect the one we inhabit–and to make a living out of connecting people to that is pretty special in my opinion.
Your talk centres around art history in Aotearoa. What do you believe have been some of the defining moments or works in Aotearoa’s art history?
A few moments that come to mind include: Frances Hodgkins heading off to Europe in the early 1900s; Rita Angus and Louise Henderson sketching Cass together in 1936; European émigrés arriving in Aotearoa between the 1930s-50s; The Dowse opening in Lower Hutt in 1971; the Protected Objects Amendment Act in 1975; Te Maori exhibiting at The Met in 1984; Jacqueline Fraser presenting the first New Zealand pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001; Toi Tū Toi Ora at Auckland Art Gallery in 2020... the list goes on.
And what do you think makes our art history unique?
Without a doubt, Ngā Toi Māori and Pasifika art. I feel privileged to live amongst these practices.
There's also this idea of Aotearoa being remote and distanced from the centre of the art world, which I don't necessarily agree with these days. However, in the past, I think that perceived distance has given us a sense of clarity. International art movements become popular here several years after their heyday overseas. When we engage with it, there’s already been some kind of matriculation, and then we put our own spin on it.
David Cauchi Robert Heald 2016 ink, watercolour and oil on linen 390 x 300mm
What is your favourite era of Aotearoa’s art history and why?
I’m a sucker for early colonial photography circa 1865–1915. Anything from George Valentine, the Burton Brothers, Josiah Martin, Enos Pegler, and Charles Spencer. There was a fabulous exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (curated by Emma Jameson) that showed these photographs alongside Victorian travel literature, and I have such vivid memories of it.
On one hand, I’m interested in the development of commercial photography and printmaking which was significant to the period. But I’m also fascinated by the way these photographers were distorting the land in the social consciousness of Victorian England. The imagery and literature of this period support this idea of Aotearoa as an antipodean paradise, both strange and sublime, but also ripe with aspiration for British settlers. These works are full of difficult colonial perceptions of Aotearoa that cast the landscape, and its inhabitants who are largely omitted, into a space of otherness. Many possess a romantic remoteness that is unfaithful to the reality of vibrant Māori communities.
It’s a complex period of history, full of striking and strange imagery, that continues to influence contemporary photographers working in Aotearoa. It’s one I can’t seem to get out of my head.
What can guests expect from your talk next week?
Ideally, it will be a fine balance between art historical intrigue, poetic moments, and a healthy dose of surprise. I tend to gravitate toward the weird and wonderful, so I’m sure something occult or strange will rear its head. I also hope it’ll be a talk that people can relate to, regardless of their art background. I don’t believe in putting art up on some lofty pedestal – art is about communicating ideas and I think the language used to describe it should follow suit.
Do you have any favourite works in the Select catalogue?
In no particular order: David Cauchi’s lime-green portrait of Robert Heald mainly because it makes me smile. It has an uncanny quality to it – almost like Heald has been turned into a character from the Sims that has taken hold of his own agency. Kate Small’s White Cross apricot and lemon curd colour palette has me in a chokehold. I love her studies of liminal interior spaces that exist somewhere between documentary photography and abstract painting. It also reminds me of a long night I once spent in a White Cross waiting to find out if my leg was broken – which is funny in a kind of absurd way.
There’s something kind of melancholic to Dashper’s single drumhead, which is generally part of a larger whole. Yet, it’s also so delightful in its playful fusion of Pop Art, Neo-Dada, Minimalism, and geometric abstraction – Dashper’s work really is an art historian’s playground. He was interested in the way that art spread throughout the globe but refused to accept Aotearoa’s distance from ‘art-world centres’ as a barrier. Instead, he keenly observed both domestic and international art movements with careful remove, and I feel like that allowed him to synthesise them in a way that is referential, but still original. On a more personal note, my husband is a drummer and often taps out a beat completely absent-mindedly, so drums are a shorthand for him.
Lastly, what or who is exciting you within the local art world at the moment?
Gosh, so much. Claudia Kogachi’s rug-making; Te Uru has recently unveiled Frank, a new creature from Iann An, that I’m itching to see; Curator of Screams, which is a collaborative project between Aaron Listen and Chelsea Nichols exploring contemporary art and horror films; ceramicist Debbie Harris has an exhibition opening at Föenander in August; Ayesha Green’s still life paintings; Jess Johnson doing a poster for The Hollywood’s all-nighter screening of Nightmare on Elm Street; anything and everything Natasha Matila-Smith does; and hugely excited to see She could lie on her back and sink at Gus Fisher which explores artistic responses to the witch.
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