John Bevan Ford

Early in 1995 John Bevan Ford attended a working seminar for indigenous artists of the Pacific Rim at Rotorua. The artists each 'located' themselves on a map of the Pacific.

In this resulting series of works John honours those artists, their peoples and their homelands. The structure of all the works is a reflection of that Pacific map.

Each work swings from his friends' works, to the traditional symbols and geographic expansion of their peoples, and to the grinding of the plates of the Pacific Rim. Sometimes there is a little of each. The carpet on the floor of the New Zealand and Pacific Islands Zone is an abstraction of the map with symbols from each of the artists.

A visual metaphor gives each artist's motivations an imaginative dimension to create a cultural symbol of our shared humanity. John recognises his Maori reflections and does not attempt to portray the truths of other cultures. Signs and symbols of other cultures (like the eagle) are included so that we can connect with them, rather than to artistically colonise.

There is enough abstraction and ambivalence in each work for all viewers to find in them a little reflection of their own spirit and mana.