Domestication⁸

Long before cities and alphabets, before the plough and the wheel, a few wild animals came close to the fire and stayed. The first eight creatures humans domesticated shaped who we became. They fed us, clothed us, carried us and kept us company through the long dark. They were also the eight animals I grew up with on a farm in Waihī. Painted for an exhibition in London, half a world away from those paddocks, this series is about two histories folded into one: how these animals shaped humanity, and how they shaped me. In each work a small, pale animal rests in the corner, tame and familiar. Above it rises everything older: the wildness, the debt, the memory we share.