Drypoint and Relief with emboss. H 1175mm x W 695mm, framed.

Stephens Island is a small, windswept and isolated island situated at the northern extremity of the Marlborough Sounds. It was the last known habitat of Lyall’s Wren, a small flightless endemic passerine.

In 1894, the island was selected as the site for a lighthouse. With the arrival of the lighthouse keeper came a domestic cat — or, according to some accounts, several cats — whose predation led to the rapid extinction of the species.

The island’s lighthouse keeper, David Lyall, was an attentive observer of the natural environment and recognised the inevitability of the bird’s disappearance.

Before the species vanished entirely, he distributed specimens to a number of collectors and institutions, ensuring that a material record of the wren would survive.

In this work, pattern functions as a metaphor for the ecological complexity of New Zealand’s environment. Interwoven throughout the composition are introduced predators — in this instance, cats — whose presence disrupts and unsettles the native species dispersed across the surface. The work considers the fragility of endemic ecosystems and the profound consequences of colonial introduction, imbalance and loss.

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