It has been six years since Leigh Martin has shown at JSG, so we are delighted to present his latest body of works, Rewilding. Leigh has created a series of small to medium size canvas & linen works painted with acrylic & synthetic resin washes in a most alluring palette. His artist statement is below:

Rewilding
“Ka mua, ka muri”

Rewilding is about reframing our (human) relationship to the whenua, employing holistic solutions to recover and re-establish vibrant and resistant ecosystems. What also interests me within this notion of rewilding is the wild. The dictionary defines the wilds or wilderness as being uncultivated, uninhabited, neglected, abandoned or an inhospitable region. Yet the wilderness is also a place of intrigue, dynamism and wonder, a site of vitality. The wilderness in its diversity is restorative on many levels. Interestingly, from a Kaupapa Māori perspective there is no distinction between human and non-human, in essence we are a part of the wild. So for Maori, the human and the non-human share the same origins of being, the same ontology.

So rewilding is about restoring, renewing, revitalising, and rethinking. These ideas are central to this new body of work. Consider the Māori proverb Ka mua, ka muri, as an expression of rewilding - with the image of a person walking backwards into the future. Applying this model of thinking to my creative practices, I’ve taken past works and rather than considering them redundant, I’ve sought new, latent potentialities. In the studio this has involved mediums that dissolve and/or reveal earlier actions and layers. This process has led to more recent works that are built upon this process of un-painting. This act of revisiting and revitalising is not simply an overworking in the sense of acknowledging the past in order to move forward. It is an expression of Ka mua, ka muri, a walking backwards into the future - a reset.

Leigh Martin
Te Āti Haunui a-Pāpārangi and Ngāti Uenuku