These photographs of Colin McCahon’s Titirangi house were taken many years ago as part of my early observational work, focusing on structure, atmosphere, and the quiet details of lived spaces.
Colin John McCahon is a New Zealand modernist painter celebrated as the country’s most significant 20th-century artist. Over 45 years, his work spanned landscapes, figuration, abstraction, and the pioneering use of painted text, often exploring themes of faith, doubt, identity, and the human condition. (quote from Wikipedia)
A photo of McCahon’s portrait taken from an angle to show the structure of the small house he lived and worked in. It’s now available for anyone to visit and the Colin Mcahon Website is available to everyone, viewing times are organised. Going to and photographing one of New Zealand’s major artist’s home feels like a privilege.
With training in photography and visual language at Unitec, I often explore how place shapes visual meaning. McCahon’s Titirangi house is an important site in New Zealand art history, and these images reflect my interest in documenting environments that hold artistic memory. These are taps and sink tub where he would wash his equipment and most likely himself after painting.
The last image, taken through the glass, shows McCahon with a woman whose connection to him I don’t know. That uncertainty feels part of the photograph itself — a glimpse into a private moment, half‑seen and shaped by the house around them.