The Third Space: Ambiguity in the Art of Graham Fletcher

Abstract

This thesis examines how contemporary New Zealand artist Graham Fletcher has experimented with ambiguity over the span of his twenty-year artistic career, from his first series Mistints in 1998 to his 2017 series Spirit Rooms. Fletcher’s mixed cultural heritage as a Samoan and palagi individual was the first stepping stone which led him to create the dynamic and diverse works which are examined over the course of eight chapters in this thesis. Each chapter focuses on a particular area or theme of Fletcher’s practice, and investigates the vast range of sources which the artist has drawn upon. Using postmodernist and postcolonial methodologies, the artist’s paintings will be deconstructed to demonstrate how multi-faceted interpretations rise out of a singular artwork. It will become apparent that the visual ambiguity present in Fletcher’s early art will transition into thematic ambiguity in his later career, as the artist honed his style into a recurring theme known as ‘lounge room tribalism’. Although the artist constantly shifted in style and theme in the earlier half of his career, it will be shown that themes explored in these early works were instrumental in allowing Fletcher to develop his own version of the ‘cultural third space’ first devised by post-colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha. The third space is the pinnacle of ambiguity in the artist’s works, and although Fletcher did not explicitly discuss the space as a concrete concept in his paintings until writing his doctoral exegesis ‘Myth, Magic, Mimicry and the Cross-Cultural Imaginary’ in 2010, the space lurks in his artworks as early as his very first series. Its presence is also felt throughout a history of colonisation, post-colonisation and the present trend of globalisation, three spheres of time which Fletcher frequently comments on. By creating artworks which offer up multiple interpretations, Graham Fletcher shifts perspectives, acting as outsider and insider, ‘colonised’ and ‘coloniser’, collected and collector, manipulating and challenging the boundaries of fantasy and reality.