PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Wellington

EXHIBITED
Paper Chase, Robert McDougall Gallery, Christchurch, 1984.

Ralph Hotere produced his first Polaris series in London in 1962, as the world teetered on the brink of war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. UGM-27 Polaris was the United States of America's first nuclear-armed ballistic missile, launched from an attack submarine.

In late 1983 and early 1984, with American nuclear- powered ships visiting New Zealand as part of the ANZUS alliance, and their controversial policy to neither confirm nor deny whether their vessels carried nuclear weapons, Hotere revisted his Polaris theme with a new sense of urgency.

Working with sheets of stainless steel rumoured to have been 'repurposed' from a Fisher & Paykel factory, he worked with his buffer, grinder and blowtorch to create ravaged surfaces, that thrummed with violence and a powerful voice.