"Blast!": Pat Hanly - the painter and his protests

Lifegoeson - by Pat Hanly

18 February 2012 - 15 April 2012

A generation ago in 1987, New Zealand passed legislation to make the country nuclear free. We are celebrating this wonderful achievement with an exhibition featuring Pat Hanly’s anti-nuclear paintings and Gil Hanly’s documentary photographs. Writer, Trish Gribben has also published the book Blast!Pat Hanly–the painter and his proteststo introduce a new generation of children to this special epoch in our country’s history.

Pat Hanly’s paintings are about passion and protest, light, love and life. He painted with many different styles and subjects but this collection of paintings and prints focuses on the work made in fear or protest about nuclear weapons. In the story of New Zealand’s struggle to be nuclear-free no artist is more important than Pat Hanly.

Pat Hanly (1932-2004) was a small man with a big-hearted, wide-seeing view of the world. He was bold and brave. All through his life he painted and spoke up about political and social things that disturbed him, especially nuclear testing when France was exploding bombs at Moruroa, in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean.

New Zealand’s nuclear-free movement of the 1970s and 80s focused on nuclear testing in the Pacific, visits by nuclear warships to New Zealand ports and the establishment of a nuclear-free nation.Nuclear Free: Protest Photography by Gil Hanly covers locally-based peace groups involved in this movement and illustrates how this major social phenomenon grew in scale and momentum.

Gil Hanly (b. 1934) is a leading New Zealand photographer who has documented major social movements and public events since the early 1970s. Her involvement and support of the peace movement is longstanding, with strong ties to the women’s movement, a significant force in the campaign for nuclear disarmament.

Throughout this period of social and political upheaval Gil Hanly has been an active and prolific recorder of events, which have been significant in shaping New Zealand’s national identity and place in a global context.

Also showing are documentary DVDs, No Nukes is Good Nukesand Departure and Return by Claudia Pond-Eyley, and Women on the Move by Lisa Prager.

With this touring exhibition and book, we hope to engage an audience of all ages and tell a very New Zealand story of the power of art to move hearts and minds.

The exhibition is touring New Zealand Public Art Galleries 2010-12.