Star Gossage’s (Ngāti Wai / Ngāti Ruanui) new botanical paintings emerge from many wellsprings of inspiration, from the beautiful garden she tends on her papa kāinga at Pākiri to, more unexpectedly, the poetry of Federico García Lorca. These influences intertwine throughout the works, creating a bold new direction that is both grounded in whenua and lifted by lyricism.
In these paintings, Gossage turns her gaze toward the intimate world of flowers, foliage, and seasonal richness. Her Pākiri garden, long a place of solace and creativity, becomes a source of colour, rhythm, and emotional resonance. She has loved gardens her whole life, studying plants as a child, pulling apart petals to understand their structure, learning their names and habits. That lifelong relationship now blooms across the canvas. Inspiration from the graceful gardens of Robin and Simon Barclay in Matakana is also present, introducing a new palette of florals. Gossage’s ability to intertwine these introduced species with the ghostly presence of the pōhutukawa that surround her at Pākiri creates a layered botanical world that feels both familiar and newly imagined.
These new paintings showcase the bold confidence and skill of a tohunga mahi toi. That she could have doubted her ability to move effortlessly into botanical landscapes is almost inconceivable when standing before these assured works. Yet she speaks openly about the fear she was not good enough to paint flowers. It was only after reading the line “paint things that make you feel awe,” and after spending time in the Barclay garden, that she finally allowed herself to step fully into this subject matter. The outcome is spectacular. The paintings radiate vitality, clarity, and a deep emotional resonance.
The result is a painterly symphony that reveals the lushness of summer, a joyous celebration of the fruits of care, labour, and time spent tending a garden. Lorca’s words echo gently through the work: “What would life be without roses… They are a refuge for the many hearts.” Later he writes, “They are the stars that feel love… Hail roses, solemn stars!” These lines add a subtle poetic charge that deepens the emotional connection of the paintings without overwhelming them.
This work brings joy, the kind of joy that reminds us of the power of art to move us, to reach across borders, and to connect us to shared human experiences. At the same time, these paintings reconnect us to te taiao, to the living world that sustains us, and to the deep whakapapa of gardening in Aotearoa. Moana Jackson, in his 2009 lecture where he suggested Alan Duff’s novel might more truthfully have been titled Once Were Gardeners, spoke of gardening, or mahi māra, as a metaphor for Māori relationships to whenua, relationships grounded in care, reciprocity, and the quiet, enduring work of tending. Gardening, he reminded us, is a way of connecting to ancestral practices and remaining in right relationship with the land. Gossage’s paintings echo that truth. Even when only a few small figures appear, the human presence is everywhere: in the tending, the nurturing, the intergenerational knowledge of growing things.
Star Fleur feels like a culmination of many threads in Gossage’s life, brought together with courage and clarity. She has titled the exhibition using her own middle name, Fleur, a choice that underscores how central the natural world is to her life and practice, as it is to all of us. Frankly put, Star Fleur is everything the world needs right now. Ngā mihi nui, wahine toa.
Essay by Jaenine Parkinson
