Colin McCahon is one of New Zealand’s most significant artists of the Modernist canon. His career of over forty years surveyed figuration, abstraction, landscapes, and word paintings that explored overarching themes of religion, ecology, and the human condition.

The Colin McCahon House Trust, established in 1988, is a museum and international artist residency, based in Titirangi, Auckland that preserves McCahon’s oeuvre and supports contemporary art practice in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Invited by the Auckland Art Fair, McCahon House engaged Knight Associates to assist in creating an environment that would exhibit a rare McCahon ‘Kauri’ work from 1957 - his Cubist-inspired period - alongside a newly commissioned edition, entitled ‘Waterfall’, by artist Shane Cotton (Ngāti Rangi, Ngāti Hine, Te Uri Taniwha).

As with McCahon’s work from this period, the landscape of Titirangi provided an abundant foundation for a design response for the temporary exposition space. Clay plaster, with sand from Otitori Bay, was heavily rendered onto the wall surfaces, selected furniture pieces reference McCahon's signature densely sculptural landscape forms, while three large Kauri plinths displayed saplings specially grafted from the trees that McCahon planted on the property in the 1950s.

Special thanks to our partners and contributors;  McCahon House Trust, Michael Lett Gallery, Matisse, Nodi Rugs, Ambitec, and David White Furniture.