Marilynn Webb Cloud Landscape 2 1973 (detail). Linoleum engraving. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1973 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb Drawing for Sunset Block – Mahinerangi 1974. Monotype, hand-coloured on paper. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb Thunderstorm & the Waipori river 1981. Hand-coloured linocut on paper. Marilynn Webb Estate collection
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb Protection work – winter garden with snow 1986. Hand-coloured linoleum engraving. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1993 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb Mining Crumble 1982. Monotype & Xerox on paper. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb Burning Landscape 1984. Hand-coloured linocut on paper. Marilynn Webb Estate collection
Marilynn Webb Landscape with a Bleeding Rainbow (from the Pacific Countdown Suite) 1985. Linocut, intaglio & relief, hand-coloured on deckle-edged paper. Hocken Collections – Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb Snow clouds and tussock, Lake Mahinerangi 1989. Hand-coloured linocut on paper. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1993 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb Rakiura 2002. Pastel on paper. Marilynn Webb Estate collection
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb Clutha River – Matau – The Landing Place of the Uruao Canoe 2008. Woodcut on paper. Marilynn Webb Estate collection
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the hills 2023. Installation view Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Photo: Alex Lovell-Smith
Marilynn Webb
Folded in the hills
8 December 2023 - 7 April 2024
‘It’s nothing to do with drawing landscape, it’s to do with connection…’
Marilynn Webb (1937 – 2021)
Across five decades, Ngāpuhi, Te Roroa and Ngāti Kahu artist Marilynn Webb (ONZM) dedicated herself to making art concerned with the relationships between land, sky and water. Extending from Te Tai Tokerau Northland, to the home she made in Ōtepoti Dunedin, Webb spent her lifetime tracing the potential of the horizon and finding strength in the embrace of the hills. This is the legacy that she leaves to the next generation: the power of connection between tangata and whenua, people and land.
Webb was raised in Ōpōtiki, a small coastal town in Te Moana-a-Toi Bay of Plenty, where her childhood was shaped by adventures in the bush, and at the beach and river. Secondary schooling led on to Teachers College, and by the early 1960s Webb had been appointed as a specialist art adviser within the Art and Craft scheme that was radically reshaping creativity in schools across Aotearoa New Zealand. Independent and bold, she travelled the world, built a close-knit community, and created a distinctive and internationally-celebrated printmaking practice.
In 1974 Webb was awarded the prestigious Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, leaving her teaching role and relocating to Ōtepoti. Her move South would prove enduring, and over the decades that followed Webb developed a life’s work that can be described as a requiem for the landscape of Aotearoa; an acknowledgement, a lament, and a tribute to the places she felt connected to and that shaped and supported her life.
Webb was a feminist, an environmentalist and an activist, and used her work to stand up for issues that were critical to her. Her images reflect on the Māori histories embedded in our landscapes, and rise up in defence of violences inflicted upon them. Her works provide many ways to think about what it means to live in Aotearoa, and how to negotiate the complex relationships that continue to shape our connections to this whenua.
Curators: Lauren Gutsell, Lucy Hammonds, Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi)
A major book has been published alongside this exhibition, it is a testament to the life’s work of this important artist. With essays from the exhibition curators, Lauren Gutsell, Lucy Hammonds and Bridget Reweti, and introduced by Dr Bridie Lonie, the texts dive deep into the richness and complexity of Webb’s work. This book is available from the Gallery shop and be purcahsed online – click here
Exhibition partner