Twilight's Edge
Graham Fletcher’s works explore complex cultural issues within a postcolonial context.
Aptly titled, Twilight’s Edge is a series of dimly lit landscapes from Ōtepoti Dunedin-based painter Graham Fletcher. The moody, dark landscapes were painted during the artist’s time as artist-in-residence at Tylee Cottage, Whanganui in 2021 and were recently shown at The Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
Where in earlier works decontextualised cultural artefacts were often shown in domestic architectural environments, this new series is set in the landscape and is both a continuation and break from the narrative techniques that have characterised his work since the early 2000s.
Retaining a familiar feeling of tension, the dislocated cultural artefacts that were previously presented in domestic settings appear to be replaced by fragmented histories and mysterious narratives. Shadowy figures, sentinel like carvings, occupy the dusky vistas and there is a strange feeling of the familiar and the unknown, a disconnection between what is real, imagined, and reconfigured. We have all experienced the rhythmically fluctuating in-between of twilight. Yet Fletcher’s compositions feel otherworldly, venturing into unknown lands and waters. These works speak to Fletcher’s experience in Whanganui but are not constrained by a particular place — only by this twilight time.