Flecks of life _{by Alessia Belsito-Riera}

The holdfast of rimurapa (bull kelp) binds it to rock, so the tipu (stalk) can move with the current. But if it breaks free, it has another strategy: it floats, in rafts that drift with winds and water, carrying itself and many other forms of life over oceans, to distant shores.

Holdfast, an exhibition from Kate Stevens West (Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) at Bowen Galleries until the 18^th of October, channels the tension between holding on and drifting free.

“Hold fast to your children, your grandchildren, your stories, your rock,” Stevens West says. “And if, and when, you must let go, let it be to drift in the spectacular flow of whakapapa: mammalian, botanical, ancient, slippery, wet, and unknowable.”

In her practice as a whole and in this collection in particular, the Ōtepoti-based artist imagines a dynamic integration of past, present, and future; a place where different generations collide in a series of transformative encounters, trailing talismanic objects, detritus, and ideas. She paints whakapapa in an expansive sense.

“I’m trying to make sense of the world and my place in it. The paintings entwine human life with other creatures and plants,” Stevens West says, adding that in her recent work tagging pakake (sea lions), she had a moment of connection. “Each animal feels different,” she continues, “they’re individuals like us”. Watching them “reminded me again and again: we’re these flecks of life, beings in different skin. Connected, and not so very different from each other”.

But the whakapapa stretches wider still, she says. “It’s a very comforting thing – to be so small. To be a fleck in a giant soup of life, stretching out in all directions through time”.