Printmaker's works honour resilience after the storm

The fourteenth of February 2023 is a date etched on our collective memory. Cyclone Gabrielle was a catastrophic event that ripped through our region, proving how untamed the force of nature can be. The aftermath had a long tail, and 3 years later the recovery continues.

What came about immediately after the event, as the community of Te Matau-a-Māui/Hawke’s Bay reached out to each other, was well documented in the media. In the midst of such a grave tragedy everyone dug deep to help each other. As the imminent three-year anniversary rolls around, we remember the lives lost, the sheer scale of the devastation, and reflect on how our individual coping mechanisms kicked in. It’s hard to picture the reality of cars floating upside down, bridges washed away, and slash mixed with agricultural produce piled up on the beach. As unimaginable as it may seem, it truly happened and was sadly all too real.

From January 24 you will be able to view a collection of works by master printmaker Anthony Davies that capture the raw emotion of this moment in our history. Dark Waters explores loss, trauma, and the emotional toll of the cyclone, while also acknowledging the extraordinary resilience and unity shown by the community of Hawke’s Bay. Working with media images as his source, Whanganui based Davies created drawings that ultimately became a series of 18 lithographs and etchings in his signature style. This work has been generously donated to the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust collection by the artist.

Davies is an art practitioner that approaches his subject matter with sensitivity and empathy at the core. His images are gritty, earthy and real. A little confronting perhaps, but this is what this artist is known for.

Originally from the UK, but settled in Aotearoa/New Zealand since 1994, Davies has unfailingly concerned himself with social and political commentary, inspecting societal inequity and issues through a well-focussed lens. What results are intricate studies of human nature that invite us to reflect on ourselves, and what’s happening around us.

Graduating from the Royal College of Art, London with an MA in 1973 and subsequently working in Italy, Wales, and Belfast in Ireland, Davies became used to observing the local people and politics. He set up print workshops, completed residencies and fellowships and fulfilled teaching positions. In 1994 he was elected R.E Fellow of the Royal Society of Painters and Printmakers in England, followed by a year lecturing at Elam College of Fine Arts in Auckland and as Visiting Professor at Florida State University, after which he returned to make Aotearoa his home.

Davies is interested in people and uses printmaking as his vehicle for expressing and highlighting many varied contemporary issues. This stands to reason – printmaking is a time-consuming process, and working alone gives Davies time to ingest media reports, question and plan his next move. His chosen methods of lithography and etching for Dark Waters would not have been a snap decision. What better way to depict the dark, tangled and sodden landscape that emerged after the cyclone than with etched metal and stone, a dark mud coloured ink slicked over the textured plates. To heighten the impact further, Davies digitally enlarged each hand-pulled print to reflect the scale of the event and frame as one cohesive collection. Each image invites the viewer to become involved, move closer, inspect the detail and connect with the memory.

Etching and lithography are not easy mediums, at best they can be unpredictable. To be a printmaker requires a dedicated commitment to your craft. Anthony Davies has this in spades, as the work he has produced over the last few decades stands testament to. If you’d like to meet Anthony and hear more about his practice, he’ll be giving a public floor talk with a Q&A session at MTG Hawkes Bay Tai Ahuriri on Saturday January 24 at 11am.

Published in the Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper on 24 January 2026 and written by Lisa Feyen, online media & administration at MTG Hawke’s Bay.