The beloved painter, and subject of a new short documentary, gives her take on the state of the world.
Jacqueline Fahey was painting when very few women were. Born in Timaru in 1929, she attended the Canterbury College School of Art (now Ilam) and at the same time, befriended established artists like Rita Angus and Doris Lusk. The pair would go on to organise the first “gender-balanced” exhibition, at Centre Gallery in Wellington in 1964.
Fahey was influenced by those women, not so much in a stylistic sense, but they allowed her to “construct around my work and force the life I did lead to be part of my work”.
Fahey’s work is unmistakeable. Her paintings present the social and domestic life of New Zealand women (including herself, her mother and her three daughters) throughout the decades, in startling colour and dizzying perspectives. And have been described as depicting “the claustrophobia of the female experience”.
Across all seven decades, both in her life but particularly her work, Fahey has been political. From the patriarchal oppressions of the 50s and 60s (and now) to her latest work, which depicts an affluent New Zealand woman turning away from a television showing the atrocities in Gaza.
In the new documentary Jacqueline Fahey: From Where I’m Looking, screening at the Doc Edge Festival this month, directer Oliver Dawe captures Fahey aged 96 and still as sharp, political and cool as ever.
One can learn a lot in nearly 100 years on earth. Here, one of New Zealand’s greatest and most celebrated artists shares her best advice and strongest thoughts on life right now.
Read Megan Dunn’s evocative fan letter to Fahey and her work here.
What bothers you most about the world right now?
Everything because we are oppressed by a brutal bourgeoisie who are inventing gods to serve their own purposes. Putting their ill-gotten gains into corporations. Corporations wallowing in stupidity and greed. Distracting us as they rob us blind. Distracting us with football, yacht races, bogus films, and painting empty of content. The Roman Empire distracted their rabble with feasts and circuses, nothing new here.
What sort of people do you avoid?
Anybody who looks away from Gaza.
What makes you want to get up in the morning?
Looking out the window to glimpse a bird, a dog, a cat going about their business in their innocence.
How do you hold onto hope in these crazy times?
Hope? I fear Voltaire’s bridge over the abyss is already beyond repair.
What is the single best quality a human can have?
Courage.
What’s over-rated?
The electoral system, cupcakes, croissants and washing machines.
What’s under-rated?
Tarāpunga red-billed gulls.
If you could have a do-over, what would you change?
Everything.
What brings you joy?
A demonstration of compassion.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Don’t listen to advice.
What advice do you wish you’d never followed?
Where should I begin?
Tell us about a controversial opinion you hold.
It seems what I am is controversial.
When you’re feeling low, what helps?
Painting until I couldn’t, now poetry, writing and my familiar, Alvin, the cat.
In what ways is public-facing Jacqueline different to private Jacqueline?
My Great Aunt Mary Allen would constantly declare “pretend nothing”. But, I believe I always understood that without sincerity and truthfulness, a painting could not survive.
Give us some life advice.
My advice to students? Don’t tell the painting let the painting tell you. Anybody involved in creativity discovers by constant practice their own answer.
