Tōtara Uho | by Conor Jeory

This stunning work was hand-carved from a tōtara fence post, with a carved face revealed by Conor Jeory - Ngāti Porou.

"For years I have taken old fenceposts washed down out of the eroding hinterland of Turanganui-A-Kiwa - Poverty Bay and carved faces into them which I often then tattoo, with pyrography, a moko of my own design and kaupapa.
But with this series (of which this is one) I wondered what happened if I tried drilling down Into the post rather than peeling the wood away - to expose a character. This way keeping the form of the post in the round. Revealing a sprite Within the ancient tree shard.
This retains more completely the 'synaesthetic' experience the dry old utilitarian surface of the post expresses - to my imagination I can place myself out in the station, the smell of lanolin and sheep-poo, the baa and low of sheep and cattle, the tweeting of the birds, the gentle breeze in the hot sun and the fencelines tracking out around the landscape, tracking around the hills, dangling over steep slips in the bare exposed hillcountry".

Size: 30 x 17 x 12 cm
Materials: totara fencepost beachcombed from Waikanae Beach, Tairawhiti - Gisborne.

Made in New Zealand