Overview

From ancient whatu kākahu to contemporary installation art, Frances Hodgkins to Merata Mita, Fiona Clark to Mataaho Collective, Sight Lines tells the story of art made by women in Aotearoa. Gathered here are painters, photographers, performers, sculptors, weavers, textile artists, poets and activists. They have worked individually, collaboratively and in collectives. They have defied restrictive definitions of what art should be and what it can do. Their stories and their work enable us to ask new questions of art history in Aotearoa. How have tangata whenua and tangata tiriti artists negotiated their relationships to each other, and to this place? How have women used their art-making to explore their relationships to land and water, family and community, politics and the nation? With more than 150 striking images and essays by Chloe Cull, Ngarino Ellis, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Rangimarie Sophie Jolley, Lana Lopesi, Hanahiva Rose, Huhana Smith and Megan Tamati-Quennell alongside the author, Sight Lines is a bold new account of art-making in Aotearoa through 35 extraordinary women artists.

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9781869409982

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Reviews

‘Kirsty Baker is undoubtedly a new and important voice in New Zealand art history, and Sight Lines is a major contribution to the discipline. Acknowledging her predecessors but refusing to impose a new master narrative, she has gathered a miscellany of practices and drawn on the expert wisdom of colleagues to provide insights into women artists – working individually and collectively – through the history of art in Aotearoa. Tuned to the politics of representation she has been even-handed in her focus, paying attention to Māori, Pākehā and Pasifika artists; avoiding the hierarchies of genre to consider a range of media (from functional textiles to ephemeral installations); attending to questions of class and privilege; and including queer and non-binary subjects in her compendium. Her decision to invite relevant writers to add their voices to her eloquent accounts, especially in areas where Baker lacks cultural competence, is a welcome sign of the new decolonising art history this country so dearly needs. This beautiful, well-illustrated book will open eyes to the richness and diversity of women’s art practice as it has evolved in this place.’ Christina Barton, DLitt, MNZM, art historian, curator, writer and editor

Author Information

Dr Kirsty Baker is an art historian, curator and writer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara where she currently works as a curator at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi. She completed her PhD in art history at Victoria University of Wellington—Te Herenga Waka, where her thesis ‘Constituting the “Woman Artist”: A Feminist Genealogy of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Art History 1928–1989’ was awarded a place on the prestigious Doctoral Dean’s List for 2020. Alongside this academic research, Baker’s writing on contemporary women artists in Aotearoa has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Art New Zealand, The Pantograph Punch, Artist Profile, Femisphere and Art and Australia. She has also written essays on women artists and feminist art histories for a range of publications including Flora: Celebrating Our Botanical World (Te Papa Press, 2023), The Dialogics of Contemporary Art: Painting Politics (Kerber Verlag, 2019), Embodied Knowledge / Can Tame Anything (The Dowse Art Museum, 2019), Jacqueline Fahey’s Suburbanites (New Zealand Portrait Gallery, 2019) and All Lines Converge: Some Lines Through the Archive (Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 2017).

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