Tennis
Claudia Kogachi, Artist 2021 © All rights reserved See full details
Object Detail
Description
Wearing matching visors embroidered with their initials, the artist and her mother smack a flaming tennis ball over the net toward the viewer. Tennis was painted as part of a new series of portraits titled ‘There’s No I In Team’ by Auckland-based artist Claudia Kogachi, in which the artist and mom are depicted as wonky blue figures playing a range of popular sports. Deliciously awkward and cartoon-like, There’s No I In Team is a funny yet insightful psychological portrait of the mother-daughter relationship—warts and all.
Kogachi’s earlier work depicted the pair engaged in fierce competition, but here that maternal conflict evolves into a friendlier and more collaborative spirit. Tennis depicts the pair playing on the same team, facing the world (and the viewer) together. Choosing sports that are particularly popular in her mother’s birthplace of Hawai’i, Kogachi’s work speaks to the way our upbringing, culture and identity shape our family experiences, and playfully explores the challenging emotional terrain we all traverse with the humans we love.
Kogachi’s earlier work depicted the pair engaged in fierce competition, but here that maternal conflict evolves into a friendlier and more collaborative spirit. Tennis depicts the pair playing on the same team, facing the world (and the viewer) together. Choosing sports that are particularly popular in her mother’s birthplace of Hawai’i, Kogachi’s work speaks to the way our upbringing, culture and identity shape our family experiences, and playfully explores the challenging emotional terrain we all traverse with the humans we love.
Title
Tennis
Production date
2021
Media
acrylic house paint on ply
Measurements
total: 2400 x 2400mm (h x w)
individual panels: 1200 x 2400mm (h x w)
individual panels: 1200 x 2400mm (h x w)
Credit line
Collection of The Dowse Art Museum, purchased 2021
Accession number
2021.12.1
