Lorene Taurerewa

Through the mediums of charcoal, large scale drawings on paper, I am doing the same as I have always done, working with ideas from within my familial lines, placing people in a situation to have conversations, ongoing historical conversations (rather than current conversations) exploring the language that occurs between characters who have a similar background, are constructed in a similar way but are spatially removed from each other.

Content for recent work was pulled from research of my mothers American family roots (some of the first settlers in New York) I have been tracing the lines, now complete and was very interested in their narratives, stories from 1600's through to today, which have crept into my work.  These narratives are important to my understanding of how one is shaped; it's the existential question, who am I, which everyone either consciously or unconsciously searches through contemplation of reality and meaning in their life.

Through the drawings I was also exploring the idea of the Victorian posed photographic portrait, the combination of its realism and fakery.  To investigate this through the process of drawing allowed me to try to dig out all the complexities of personality and psyche that emerge from between these two states.

Lorene Taurerewa
New York, 2009