Best known for his large, circular, light artworks that adorn walls all around New Zealand, and the iconic Wellington Harbour statue, Solace in the Wind (The Naked Man), Spain-based Max Patté is launching a new, solo show in the windy capital. The artist speaks about his migration, art, and the process of building a new home and studio in a UNESCO-protected site in the antipodes.
You are living in Mallorca, Spain — this is quite a change in environment from windy ol’ Wellington. What was behind the move, and has it changed the approach or look and feel of your work? Ha, yes, a big change indeed! Mallorca is surprising, though; it has many of the technologies, materials, and services required for maintaining yachts, [and they] cross over to what I do in my studio. There’s a good collector base and a thriving art scene,
and, with easy flights to major European centres, it means I’m getting to see more exhibitions and my own art now has a bigger presence in Europe.
My approach to work changed by necessity more than desire, since all my machines and studio equipment were unavailable to me for a long time while they were in transit from New Zealand. I spent entire mornings wandering the aisles of the hardware stores to familiarise myself with products and trying to learn the Spanish for ‘plywood’ or ‘deck screws’ — I’d put Bunnings Lyall Bay at the top of my most-missed things in Wellington!
This lack of access to my own, fully functional studio led to more painting and designing works that could be fabricated outside of my own facility. The exposure to a different kind of nature — warmer tones, different textures, and a softer light than you’d find in NZ — has no doubt influenced my work, too. I think this will be evident in my upcoming show.
You’ve previously mentioned a dream of building your own studio — somewhere “warm, with orange trees and a sea view”. Has this come true for you yet? I saw a photo of a plot of land advertised online when we were still in New Zealand. At the time, I had no idea where on Mallorca it was located but it caught my attention. As it turns out, the plot is just 10 minutes from our hometown of Alaró and I drove, purely by accident, right past the plot that I had
seen online. I recognised it immediately and fell in love. It’s taken since then, nearly three years of due diligence, to buy it and submit the plans for a large studio and separate house.
Spain is famous for its bureaucracy but, to add to the layers of complexity, the land is situated inside a UNESCO World Heritage area so things are slow, to say the least. We expect to wait another two years before we are allowed to start building, but it’ll be worth it. It’s absolutely stunning — no orange trees yet but it does have 140 olive trees, some dating back over 900 years. The views of the mountains are reminiscent of the Queenstown area, which is partly why it was love at first sight and we felt at home there immediately.
Finally, what can the audience expect from this new series of works?
The essence of this show comes from being in a new environment, a new nature, surrounded on a day-to-day basis with a different palette to the one I grew used to in New Zealand. I’m also more aware of the seasons here — particularly spring, when the countryside bursts with colour and activity. We’re surrounded by field after field of almond trees. They blossom in late January for around a month, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so aware of a wash of colour in nature quite like it.
The single source of inspiration is a collection of spring cuttings taken while out walking with my family along the lanes that head out to the nearby winery in our hometown. These cuttings were spread out on the kitchen table at home and photographed hundreds of times in various arrangements. Later, digital scans were made of the almond blossom. The photographs, colours, and forms were then broken down, rearranged, abstracted, and recorded. I like to reduce and rearrange the source material to see how far it can be pushed until it’s unrecognisable as its original object or image.
In this case, the paintings came first. I wanted to create a single expanse of harmonious colour; something that is related to the way the fields of blossom burst into life here in late January and fill your view. In a way that the title suggests, what follows is like a walk through the ‘meadows of my mind’.
