“With the well worn narrative line - explorers ventured into unknown seas, found new lands, described exotic plants, animals and inhabitants, and survived attacks by tattooed savages (or worse still, cannibals) with spears. These stories were very popular with ordinary people at that time, for they defined Europeans as 'civilised' in contrast with the 'savages' and 'barbarians' to be found elsewhere.” (1)

Central to The First Fleet is the concept of first impressions, how we view the ‘other’; an issue relevant to both the first European explorers and contemporary society. “…ones first encounter could view the ‘other’ as friend or foe, saint or Satan.” (2) Early artists often depicted a romanticised version of New Zealand where native inhabitants were portrayed with the religious sentiments of the viewer. Straka separates her body of work into two distinct themes to elaborate on this. Portraits and several accompanying landscapes appropriated from early artists depictions are reproduced in “either blue (heavenly colours) with images of a sailing boat happily running over a waka, or red (angry hell colours) with smouldering volcano scenes.”(3) Utilizing colour to represent religious connotations, Straka playfully demonstrates the judgemental attitudes made by outsiders on a foreign culture.

Heather Straka’s meticulous and lifelike portraits and landscapes are grounded in New Zealand history, art, politics and religion. She pays homage to those early images of New Zealand portrayed by artists such as Sydney Parkinson and Louis de Sainson employed to record their observations of the land and its inhabitants.

The First Fleet constructs a language of questions. “While establishing a trademark methodology Straka has also revealed an ever-broadening subject virtuosity that has the act of questioning and role of humour centrally placed.”(4)

“Moreover and despite the humour of the several devices at play …there seems to be a more poetic aspect to Straka’s work. There is a degree of emotional resonance that is not easily dismissed and this turns on the way overt aspects of content are complicated by the different inferences one may take from each and their interrelation in a given painting. Regardless of how lightly this is made out in the paintings, there is a delicacy and poignancy to their affect.” (5)

1. Ann Salmond, Two Worlds – first meetings between Maori and Europeans, 1642 – 1772.
2. Heather Straka, 2004.
3. Ibid.
4. OverView Abstraction and Still Life catalogue, Milford Galleries Dunedin 2004
5. Peter Shand, Stain/Skvrna, Galerie VIA ART, Prague, 2003.