Jean Loomis - Nga Awa e Toru - Awatere, Wairau, Waiautoa

Jean Loomis
Nga Awa e Toru - 3 Rivers
Awatere, Wairau, Waiautoa

Jean Loomis is an artist and teacher who lived in Blenheim from 2016 – 2021. Soon after Jean’s move to the Wairau (Marlborough) region, the magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura Earthquake struck. Always driven to get to know her environment, its history and mythology; she began research into her new home - a region on a Faultline.

'Nga Awa e Toru - 3 Rivers' is the result of five years of drawing, mapping, photographing, driving and flying over the rivers that flow along the three alpine faults underlying the Marlborough region. It evokes the primordial history of this land, its early Polynesian settlement and the changes brought about by colonization. A sense of wonder at the power and force that created this place, its ancient foundation in Gondwanaland and the remnants of its unique flora and fauna. Truly as the Māori proverb says: “Ko ahau te awa, ko te awa ko ahau” – “I am the river, the river is me.” Jean Loomis

Image: Jean Loomis, Te Koho a Kupe (detail)