“My current obsessions are: wildness, wilderness exploration, and play.”
I have recently been researching both how manicured our notions of wilderness are and how entrenched they are within New Zealand’s colonial history. I am using the Town Belt in Wellington as my playground to explore this urbanised view of nature. I see this space as my studio, inspiration, and a place of historical significance. I am exploring notions of animal, unruliness, wilderness and constructs such as Western ideas about nature/culture, with allusions to witchcraft and spell casting. All of this is not easily contained or definable and these qualities are what drive me to make art.
Bikka Ora is a New Zealand-based artist who works across a variety of media, including sculpture, video, installation, and performance. Her work primarily involves video, sounds, and the creation of mediated environments. Specific works have investigated the aesthetics of the decorative in active confrontation with the macabre, the uncanny, and sometimes threatening. Notions of the gothic, horror, pop culture, and the pastoral are themes that underpin her work. The frisson that occurs when mundane situations, objects or processes are disrupted is something she is continuously exploring. She received her Master of Fine Arts Degree from Massey University, Wellington and has works in collections throughout New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland and the USA.
bikkaora@gmail.com