Author(s): Ralph Hotere & Cilla Mcqueen & Priscilla Pitts & Mary Trewby & John Walsh & Ian Wedde (eds.)

Fine Art

Black Light celebrates the work of one of New ZealandâÃÂÃÂs greatest artists, Ralph Hotere. Born in 1931 in the Te Aupouri community of Taikarawa in the northern Hokianga, Hotere has baffled commentators and awed viewers for more than forty years. In this book, which accompanied the exhibition Black Light, his paradoxical themes are explored by some of New ZealandâÃÂÃÂs leading writers and critics, including Ian Wedde and Cilla McQueen. Also celebrated in Black Light is one of the most marvelous creative friendships of our time, between Ralph Hotere and the sculptor Bill Culbert. The bookâÃÂÃÂs title is partly homage to Bill CulbertâÃÂÃÂs light genius. Black Light explores the tensions between the artistâÃÂÃÂs silences and his protests, the sense of deep spirituality in the work, and the many elegant and meticulous ways in which he has claimed the colour black as his signature - from the austere black paintings of 1968, through the âÃÂÃÂBlack WindowsâÃÂàand the monumental Black Phoenix of the 1980s, to the great end-of-millennium works Blackwater and Black Cerulean. Black Light was an illustrative arts winner in the 2001 Montana Book Awards. First published 2000.