Photo: Henry Hargreaves
Celebrated Māori artist Reuben Paterson moved to New York a couple of years ago and says he has no regrets on making the move.
Paterson works predominantly with glitter and has a huge glitter studio at his Bushwick workshop in Brooklyn.
Maggie Tweedie went to his studio in New York and interviewed him there recently.
Bushwick is a famous enclave for artists and creators, Paterson said.
"When I arrived, the first thing I started looking for was a studio space, and I found these spaces here in Bushwick, not knowing what Bushwick was or what Brooklyn was, and fell in love with the spaces. I wanted to work immediately, so moved in."
Since he moved to New York the time has flown and it has been a time of high creative energy, he said.
"It has gone faster than any time frame I've ever experienced before. And I do think here we have access to be able to live a very full life in a day.
"It's a sort of time loop I feel like I'm constantly in here in New York, where I can go from a drag bar to an opera and experience the life of a week in one single night."
Photo: Flaneurshan.studio
The city has provided an abundance of options, he said.
"I'm very excited about taking the time to experience each option before I make any decisions.
"There is an abundance, and I think it's about the luxury of that and being able to afford to align with it, rather than just take it."
His first solo show in the Big Apple is In The stars I Trust, which features 10 mixed-media paintings the artist developed in New York while using the Hubble Space Telescope to map the southern constellations.
"I've been looking at a lot of Hubble telescope images of our southern skies. I like this idea that when I'm American-based, I'm looking through a predominantly American-made machine, a predominantly American lens to look back home, as I seem to do each day."
So has the move to New York has paid off? Absolutely he said.
"I really cannot wait to see what happens, particularly to my work and to my practice when I've been here for another year.
"This is why I moved, this is the longest relationship I've had with something in my life- my connection to making, and my need to make and my need to talk visually through my work - I sacrificed a lot to come here, but I did it for my practice, and I want my practice to have the biggest life that it can have, which means I have to too."
