The highlands are a place for the ghosts of humans and other animals, which become embedded in the landscape. We can be awed into stillness as we take stock of the place, the space, the enclosed or cavernous distances surrounding where we are. We wash our eyes. We search. In the valleys we watch others at work, moving from place to place with purpose. In Poatina a mid-zone community of figures, a semi-enclosed, but open and available subject exists. It floats between seductive landscape parameters.

How do the inhabitants feel about their place? What might their pleasure or apprehensions be? Where might they love to walk or drive, or merely, quietly sit. When one looks out from Poatina one is embraced by the Great Western Tiers from behind and yet there at our feet, beyond the edge is the wonder of that plain of farms and water races. The quilted vista of Cressy’s fields and water, managed by Jane’s father during the 1980s, brings us to tracks and roads winding up into the tiers.

The works in this exhibition were stimulated by her Poatina residency, but also includes a range of works, made by Poatina Village residents resulting from workshops Jane led while there.