Bergman Gallery company logo
Bergman Gallery
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Video
  • News
  • About
  • Contact
Menu

Artworks

Ian George, The Great Voyage, 1997

Ian George New Zealand | Cook Islands , 1952-2016

The Great Voyage, 1997
Acrylic on board
51 1/8 x 43 1/8 in
130 x 109.5 cm
Enquire
%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EIan%20George%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EThe%20Great%20Voyage%3C/span%3E%2C%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E1997%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3EAcrylic%20on%20board%20%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E51%201/8%20x%2043%201/8%20in%3Cbr/%3E%0A130%20x%20109.5%20cm%3C/div%3E

Visualisation

On a Wall
Ian George, The Great Voyage, Acrylic on board, 1997, is a conceptual and historical meditation on the expansive arc of Polynesian navigation—past, present, and emergent. In this work, George invokes...
Read more
Ian George, The Great Voyage, Acrylic on board, 1997, is a conceptual and historical meditation on the expansive arc of Polynesian navigation—past, present, and emergent. In this work, George invokes the epic tradition of pre-colonial transoceanic voyaging not merely as a cultural memory, but as a dynamic framework for intellectual and spiritual continuity.

The painting functions as a cartographic homage to ancestral skill, foresight, and resilience, engaging with both literal and metaphorical currents of movement, adaptation, and epistemological return.Far from romanticising the past, The Great Voyage envisions the act of navigation as an evolving continuum. George’s emphasis is as much on the recovery and reinterpretation of suppressed knowledge systems as it is on their historical magnitude. The work gestures towards contemporary re-engagements with indigenous technologies, cosmologies, and the re-contextualisation of Pacific artefacts—often displaced into foreign institutions—as critical to building future cultural security and identity.

By positioning Polynesian voyaging as both retrospective and prospective, George challenges static readings of heritage. His visual language compels the viewer to consider the ocean not as barrier but as intellectual territory, where ancestral knowledge remains alive, mobile, and central to collective futures. In doing so, The Great Voyage becomes a navigational device in itself.


Close full details
Share
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Previous
|
Next
106 
of  376
Privacy Policy
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Bergman Gallery
Site by Artlogic
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences