Series Classification: G (General Audiences) | Watch the series here
As New Zealand's cultural landscape expands, artists of Asian heritage are sparking more inclusive conversations through their creative work.
In this short documentary series, 18 Asian-NZ artists from a range of disciplines reflect on how life in Aotearoa informs their work and sense of identity.
In Episode 2, we meet three diverse multi-media artists – Seung Yul Oh, Claudia Kogachi and Charles Buenconsejo.
Seung Yul Oh: Capturing Beauty
Seung Yul Oh Photo: Sam Hartnett
Seng Yul Oh has created an instantly recognisable and idiosyncratic practice combining elements of East Asian popular culture with ironic references to high Western art history. Incorporating painting, installation, sculpture, video, performance, and public art.
In previous installations, he has used air to manipulate and redefine space, including enormous bubbles that jostled for position on Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki's outdoor terrace, and exaggerated and hyperreal sculptures of Korean noodle dishes and cute animal forms rendered in gleamingly reflective fibreglass.
In 2013, Periphery, a forest of towering yellow and white pellet-shaped inflatables that audiences pushed their way through was selected by influential Japanese curator Yuko Hasegawa for the prestigious Encounters section of Art Basel Hong Kong. This showing led to Oh being named as one of the rising stars of the Asian art market by the UK's Guardian newspaper.
Running parallel to these playful artworks is Oh's painting, a formal and sometimes minimalist practice, which the artist has described as 'musical' and offering moments of balance and counterpoint. Like much of his vastly diverse practice, an element of autobiography runs through Seung Yul Oh's practice.
Oh has completed a number of public artworks in New Zealand including the iconic OnDo, a larger-than-life sculpture of noodles held up by chopsticks in the Asian foodie mecca of Auckland's Dominion Road.
Seung Yul Oh was the second recipient of the Harriet Friedlander Residency which, with support from the Arts Foundation, allowed him to undertake an artist residency in New York in 2011.
Born in Korea, Seung Yul moved to New Zealand to study at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts, where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts. He is now permanently based in New Zealand and continues to show internationally. Seung is represented by Starkwhite Gallery.
Claudia Kogachi: Powerful Simplicity
Claudia Kogachi Photo: Supplied
Claudia Kogachi was born in Awaji-shima, Japan, in 1995. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland.
In 2019, she won the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award. She has exhibited widely at galleries across Aotearoa NZ.
Large-scale canvasses create an arena for the characters of Claudia's narrative to play out various disputes. The works are bold and contrasting, with thick layers of acrylic colour contained within black defining lines. The figures appear flat, a style nostalgically reminiscent of a Microsoft Paint, and plays out staged situational riffs within the scene.
Claudia's work renders domestic scenes, adolescence and inter-generational cultural learning through various mediums. Members of her immediate family feature frequently in her works, as well as an exploration of her Japanese-Hawaiian heritage.
Kogachi turned her art-making practice to rug tufting as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on her access to painting supplies.
Charles Buenconsejo: An Open Home
Charles Buenconsejo Photo: Charles Buenconsejo
Charles Buenconsejo (b. 1984 in Cebu, Philippines; currently resides in Auckland, New Zealand) is a photographer and artist whose artistic practice builds upon an ongoing inquiry and deconstruction of visual culture through print, video and installation works.
He studied Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines and has exhibited prolifically and won numerous awards, most notably the 2013 and 2014 Ateneo Art Awards, which earned him a residency with the La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre in Bendigo, Australia.
Since migrating to New Zealand in 2016, he has extended his interest in learning about the frameworks of food sovereignty, agroecology and the concept of pluriverse.
He is currently running a generative social sculpture advocating for food justice in his suburb called Open Homes, building community resilience and regenerating a culture of abundance through growing and sharing food, knowledge and resources.
Recent exhibitions include Open Homes, group exhibition, All GOODs, Auckland New Zealand (2021), Open Home, solo exhibition, Art Informal, Manila, Philippines (2020); 2016-2020, solo exhibition, Te Tuhi, Auckland, New Zealand (2020); Open Home, solo exhibition, RM Gallery, Auckland New Zealand (2020); Art Asia: Asia Media Art Now, Seoul, Korea (2019); Art Fair Philippines, Manila, Philippines (2019)
Credits:
Kadambari Raghukumar Photo: Supplied
Presenter: Kadambari Raghukumar
Kadambari Raghukumar is an experienced presenter and TV director who was raised by oceanographer parents in Goa on the southwest coast of India and has been living in New Zealand since 2006. During her 14-year media career, she has been a reporter/director for the TVNZ series Asia Downunder and the TV3 series Neighbourhood. Kadambari currently presents Voices - RNZ's weekly series about people from all around the world who now live in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Arani Cuthbert Photo: Diva Productions
Producer: Arani Cuthbert
Arani Cuthbert is an award-winning independent producer and the founder of Diva Productions. She is the long-term manager of New Zealand entertainers The Topp Twins. Arani produced TVNZ's top-rating series Topp Country - a three-time winner at the 2018 TV Awards and the hit documentary The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls which won Best Feature at the 2019 Qantas NZ Film and TV Awards. Arani is currently developing a comedy feature film.
