Adrienne Ranson: From stage to canvas
AS A CHILD, WHAKATANE ARTIST, ADRIENNE RANSON, LIVED IN A VARIETY OF PLACES. LAUTOKA, BRISBANE, AUCKLAND, MANGATAINOKA AND WHAKATANE WERE JUST SOME OF THE LOCATIONS OF HER SCHOOL YEARS. ALL IN ALL SHE ATTENDED TEN SCHOOLS. THIS GYPSY-LIKE LIFESTYLE WAS THE COST OF HAVING A CIVIL ENGINEER FOR A FATHER WHO TOOK ON NEW PROJECTS EVERY FEW YEARS. HOWEVER, THIS RICH START TO LIFE HAS MADE RANSON THE DIVERSE AND SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS PERSON SHE IS TODAY.
Story: Penelope Jackson; Photography: Mark Hamilton
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NOW IN HER MID FORTIES, Ranson is almost a full-time artist; about four out of seven days are spent in her studio. It has been a long and winding road to get to the point where she can paint and exhibit semi full-time. Singing, teaching and working with the customer service team at the Whakatane Information Centre supplement her income and add variety to weekly routine.
On completing secondary school Ranson embarked on her university studies, majoring in English literature and drama. Shortly after completion Ranson switched camps and undertook formal visual art studies at Otago Polytechnic.
During her university years Ranson became involved and committed to several social and political causes. Perhaps the most compelling one was working with victims of child sexual abuse and for many years she worked at the Dunedin Rape Crisis Centre. Ranson was a founding member of the Taumarunui Women’s Refuge and Rape Crisis Centre.
Creativity was part of the social work Ranson had formally been involved with; art as therapy initiated her first exhibition at the Dunedin Community Art Gallery in 2001 where she used a visual diary, combined with her penchant for Buddhist thinking.
Bold & Assertive
Ranson is a long-term committed feminist; her beliefs are reflected in her art. Body referencing has been central to Ranson’s oeuvre through time including her recent exhibition, The Positivity of Difference, hosted by the Calder and Lawson Gallery, Hamilton, in July 2008. The suite of large paintings have their origins in the perineum - yes, that area of the anatomy between the anus and the genital organs. However, at face value viewers wouldn’t necessarily glean this. In other words, the perineum, like other body parts, was the catalyst for Ranson’s images in The Positivity of Difference. She does not replicate nature per se.
The paintings are large, bold and assertive. Ranson’s handling of paint is gestural; each work enjoys a different colour scheme including the frame. Her painting technique is confident and more recently has contained an Eastern influence. Her interest in Asian calligraphy is evident with the linear quality of her brushwork. The Positivity of Difference is a sleek group of works demonstrating Ranson’s clever handling of subject and materials. And like many contemporary artists, Ranson also uses the computer to see what other possibilities can be worked up. By changing colour options or rotating the image she can create the idea of a whole new work. She describes the use of the computer as “simply another drawing tool”.
Not to everyone’s taste is the fact that she repeats her imagery over and over, but this is her individual artistic nuance. Ranson explains her philosophy behind the repetition of patterns and images as “each image is a re-enactment of the others. That they are repetitions of each other and re-enactments emphasises my ongoing interest in the processes of being simultaneously spontaneous and disciplined.”
Ranson’s background in the dramatic arts comes into play in her painting. She is modest about her amateur acting achievements giving the example of being the “background blur in a Hyundai car ad”. She was the lead actor in Glenn Strandring’s movie Zerographic (1992) and in the early 1990s worked on the children’s television show, Oi. In 1993, Ranson played 16 different characters in a play called Women Like Us at Taki Rua theatre in Wellington. Ranson regards these dramatic forays in the distant past but they are ever present in her subconscious as well as showing a deep concern and interest in the human condition.
Loud & Exuberant
Like performing on the stage, Ranson’s paintings are loud, in strength and power, not in an over-the-top manner. And like a performance, which let’s face it has the same script each time, her paintings are repetitions with slight variations, often colour being the greatest variable. Ranson describes this aspect of her work as being “a performance with its own event.”
Music aids Ranson’s art making too. Her admiration for exuberant and complex Baroque music coupled with 20th century artists, Kandinsky and Klee who worked directly with music to make images, continue to influence Ranson.
Ranson has continued to educate herself, updating her skills in 2004 by completing a Master in Fine Arts degree with Whitecliffe College of Art and Design in Auckland. Currently, Ranson lives on a five hectare block of land, ten minutes out of Whakatane at Awakeri. Her studio is in the garage and regularly she teaches art to adults through community education programmes at Edgecumbe College, Kawerau College and Whakatane High School.
Ranson’s recent series, Of Waves and Strata, demonstrates her penchant for the abstract. However, as the title suggests, Ranson’s subject matter comes indirectly from nature. Influenced by Aboriginal art as well as Byzantine mosaics, this colourful series makes reference to the geological diagrams of seismic movements and aerial mapping of land masses of the Rangitaiki plains. In late 2008 a group exhibition at the Whakatane Art Gallery and Museum included Ranson’s work. Each artist was asked to choose a place in the eastern Bay of Plenty and respond to it.
Ranson chose Toi’s Pa on the Nga Tapuwai o Toi walkway overlooking the Rangitaiki plains. Ranson has also called on her knowledge of the writings of philosophers, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, for inspiration with this series.
Ranson’s life is full; singing in a rock band is her other vocation. Alongside her partner Maree White (aka Mouse), Ranson (whose stage character is the buxom blonde Gloria) rocks at various gigs including the enormously successful 2005 and 2007 Tarnished Frocks and Divas Fashion Show in Tauranga. Ranson doesn’t let the grass grow under her feet - her life is a whirl of activity. The ‘Mouse and Gloria Show’ has several gigs booked for the latter part of 2008. On a more serious music note, Ranson sings mezzo alto with the Edgecumbe Choir. Ranson also has several exhibition ideas she wants to fulfil.
