Let the Work Speak: On Colour, Commitment, and Canon

A critical analysis of Frances Hodgkins — and several contemporaries who might be a better fit for you

No Neutral Spaces is a space for honest, critical conversations about art, culture, and ideas that refuse to conform or stay comfortable. This blog questions the frameworks and assumptions that shape what we see, say, and value. It’s about pushing beyond polite consensus to engage with complexity, power, and nuance—inviting readers to think deeply and speak openly.

I’ve now seen Frances Hodgkins’ work in a major public institution twice, both times at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, and today in a commercial gallery setting at Gow Langsford in Auckland’s city centre. Nikita was with me each time, and honestly, the second show didn’t help either of us. If anything, it sharpened the same discomfort we’d already had. I know she’s important. But I’m staring at it like someone’s forcing me to eat tripe. I don’t get the hype.

It started, as it often does, with a gallery visit and a bit of righteous shit-talking. Frances Hodgkins is a name that holds immense weight in Aotearoa art history, but just like last time, Nikita and I found ourselves side-eying yet another wall of murky still lifes. I turned and said, “These all look muddy, muted, mucky... like underpaintings.” It reminded me of oil paints thinned down with turps to the point of transparency, a lick of colour floating in a greasy, oily layer. More haze than hue. Reminiscent of Year 9 art class.

I used to think maybe she just didn’t have access to a full range of colours. But then I remembered there were earlier movements like Fauvism that were bright, bold, and high-impact, and even contemporary artists pushing similar ideas further. The German Expressionists, for example. Or parts of the Vorticist and early Cubist scenes. People were already going hard with colour, abstraction, and visual distortion. So this wasn’t scarcity. This was a choice. And I couldn’t help but ask: why?

I think I’ve hit a canon overdose.

Before I start pulling apart the reverence around Frances Hodgkins, I want to be fair about where it comes from. Because it’s not just hype. There are reasons she’s held up the way she is. I’m just not sure those reasons are enough to carry the work itself — not all of it, anyway.

She was a pioneer from the edges. One of the first artists from Aotearoa to get proper recognition in Europe, at a time when artists from the colonies were barely included, and women even less so. It’s colonial exclusion- compounded by gender. That counts for a lot. She carved out space in the big boys’ club, exhibited with the Seven and Five Society, taught at the Académie Colarossi in Paris, and aligned herself with the avant-garde while most women artists were still being pushed to the side. Her success wasn’t just about her. It became proof that a woman from Aotearoa could not only break into the centres of European art power, but also do well.

Still life has long been dismissed as decorative or feminine, but Hodgkins used it as a site of ambiguity, pushing at the boundaries of the genre. Domestic objects turn symbolic, blur into landscape, slip into something else. Her shift from delicate watercolours to something looser and more abstract is often framed as evidence of restlessness or artistic risk. And for a lot of people, that refusal to land cleanly is part of what makes the work exciting.

Hodgkins has moved beyond respect and into highly entrenched canon. Her work sits in nearly every major public collection in Aotearoa, and her legacy gets positioned as a kind of pivot point. Her looseness is read as liberation. A rejection of realism. A break from macho brushwork. This is the version we’re handed — the story that gets repeated. It’s the scaffolding that props up how she’s written about, taught, and shown. And sure, none of it’s made up. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be challenged.

This is what people say she’s doing. Shifting form and function. Elevating everyday subjects into something unstable and poetic. Her work is often framed as expressive, experimental, emotionally textured. A kind of psychic landscape: slippery, non-linear, anti-patriarchal.

But when you strip away the reverence and just look, a lot of the work feels hesitant. The colours are low-chroma: ochres, greys, olive greens. The forms are ambiguous to the point of fading away. It’s all suggestion, no conviction. Curators will call it “expressive” or “radical,” but standing in front of it, I mostly felt nothing. Or amused annoyance. The emotional or visual risk I was hoping for never arrived.

There were a few beautiful works in the show we saw, but even those didn’t quite do it for me. I know what I like, and sorry Frances, it’s not you. Though there are moments, or fragments of moments, a part of a piece where I can acknowledge, “Yeah ok Frances, you're not so bad.”

One of the pieces I didn’t mind was an earlier work: Dutch Harbour Scene (1907). It had structure, light, and intentionality. The brushwork felt guided, the colour shifts coherent. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was resolved. Which probably isn’t surprising. It was a solid example of an image of a thing. If anything, it confirmed that the later unraveling of her style was a conscious shift. Not a lack of skill, but a deliberate movement toward ambiguity. Whether or not that decision resonates is another matter.

That creeping sense of doubt really landed when we got to one particular image of a farmyard: Farm Pond (1943). There are two animals in the lower right that, at a glance, register as horses, but they’re missing parts. One has no visible head. The other has a neck like a llama and a butt that looks stuck on backwards. I pointed at it and said, “That looks like the backside of a horse with a llama neck and head, and that’s it.” It reminded me of those Sid toy mashups from Toy Story: anatomically chaotic and hard to read as deliberate. But the painting did reach toward something. There was a kind of urgency, a need to capture the scene before it slipped away. That energy is there, under the surface, but it feels stuck. Sluggish. Like it got caught in the mud on the way to becoming something else.

Similarly, Pleasure Boat, Bridgnorth (c.1932) caught my eye. Almost. The boat in the bottom right looks like it’s floating not in water, but on nothing. The perspective is off just enough to feel wrong. The angle of the hull is inconsistent. It reminded me of early art classes, where the whole aim was to learn how not to do that: how to ground objects in space, how to handle perspective so it didn’t unravel the whole composition. It doesn’t ruin the painting, but it pulls focus. Which is frustrating, because the rest of the scene has something going for it. The town on the hill has charm, the colours on the central boat are rich and inviting. I wanted to like it more than I did. It had atmosphere, and reminded me of a looser Steven Romm from his 1980s works but without the structure that makes those pieces sing.

What I wanted from her work came into focus when I walked through a different show at Auckland Art Gallery, the Robertson Gift exhibition. Some of Hodgkins’ contemporaries (or near-contemporaries) were on full display, and seeing their work right after hers only sharpened the contrast. I stood in front of a painting that exploded with reds and yellows. A cityscape, loud, layered, alive. It might not have been by David Fredenthal, but it had that feel. Dynamic brushwork, strong perspective, pulsing energy. The kind of work that knows what it wants to be.

It’s about commitment. I don’t need realism or polish. I need intention. Hodgkins’ work often feels caught mid-thought, like she paused before finishing and never came back. That kind of irresolution can be a statement, sure. But it can also just feel unresolved.

I’m definitely not the audience for Frances Hodgkins. Her work is for people who already know the story, who’ve been told this is important and believe it. For collectors chasing prestige, for curators who want a tidy narrative, for institutions that like their icons already canonised. Or for people who genuinely like it. But if you’re not walking in with that reverence, the work doesn’t give you much back.

When we were at Gow Langsford, I was struck by the gallerist who was on the floor, walking an elderly woman through the show. He offered her a personalised tour, not a sales pitch but a conversation. They were deep in discussion about the historical context, why the work mattered, and what they were looking at together. It was generous, rigorous, and genuinely engaged. His enthusiasm was contagious, and hers matched it. I might not love the work, but that kind of care and knowledge is always worth noticing. That, too, is part of the ecosystem that surrounds an artist’s legacy.

But if Hodgkins doesn’t do it for you, you’re not alone. Here are some contemporaries and near-contemporaries who land where she doesn’t. These artists bring clarity, commitment, and visual intention, even when working loosely or abstractly. You don’t need a wall text to feel it. You can just stand in front of the work and know they meant it.

Some artists win you over with colour and confidence. André Derain, one of the leading Fauves, didn’t hesitate. His colours are unapologetic. In the Robertson Gift show, his Paysage à l’Estaque (1906) was a masterclass in saturation and structure. Every shape carried weight. Every hue had purpose. Similarly, Raoul Dufy’s lightness was deceptive. His compositions hum with energy. He made joy feel modern, and his seaside towns, concert halls, and shopfronts show a sense of rhythm and movement. Henri Matisse, especially in his boldest works, uses colour like a statement. The Snail, Woman with a Hat, Interior with Egyptian Curtain — none of them feel hesitant. They know exactly what they’re doing.

Others strike through strong line and grounded abstraction. David Fredenthal’s urban sketches and watercolours are full of movement and structure. They hold together, even in the chaos. He captures signage, street life, and human motion in a way that feels deliberate. Robert Ellis approached abstraction through architecture and infrastructure. His maps and diagrams reflect a cultural literacy and spatial awareness that never blurs into vagueness. And Gabriele Münter, often overshadowed by Kandinsky, had a boldness that made her houses and portraits crackle with clarity.

Then there are those who reimagine still life or domestic space without losing strength. Margaret Preston flattened flowers and interiors into near-abstraction with purpose. Every shape mattered. Emily Carr rooted her trees and mountains with force and integrity. Her landscapes breathe. Olivia Spencer Bower captured everyday scenes with warmth and precision. Her work is expressive without ever feeling lost.

Closer to Aotearoa, there’s Rita Angus, who mastered emotional resonance through graphic composition. Her paintings are charged with stillness and strength. Doris Lusk balanced the built and natural world with control and weight. Lois White’s work is dramatic, theatrical, and unapologetic — allegorical without being fluffy. And in all of these, you get a sense that what you’re seeing is exactly what the artist wanted you to see.

None of these artists are "better" than Hodgkins by default. But they might be better for you. They’ve certainly been better for me.

Is it rude to say this? No, it’s not. It’s important to say it, as long as you can say why. Personal taste isn’t trivial if it’s thought through. You don’t have to whisper your discomfort in the back room of a gallery or bury it under a shrug and a quiet “maybe I just don’t get it.”

Is it the aesthetics? The colour? The structure? The conceptual framework? Is it the myth around the work? Is it that the work never seems to meet you halfway? These are all valid reasons to not connect. 

What matters is paying attention to what pushes you away and owning that response with curiosity rather than the guilt you feel when you don’t vibe with a canonised artist. Frances Hodgkins is a beloved figure in Aotearoa art. But sometimes reverence gets in the way of honesty.

As much as I don’t enjoy Frances Hodgkins, I have to take my own advice. It’s still worth seeing shows that don’t resonate. Encountering what doesn’t work for you sharpens your sense of what does. That tension is part of the process. Discomfort is useful. It helps you articulate your own boundaries, values, and appetites. If you only ever see the work you already love, you stop expanding your critical range. Hodgkins reminded me what I want in a painting. She clarified my preferences by contrast.

This isn’t about tearing her down. It’s about trusting your own response. Canonical importance doesn’t always translate to aesthetic impact. And that’s okay. Art doesn’t need to be universally moving. But we can stop pretending that everyone must feel it.

Frances Hodgkins will always have her place in the story of New Zealand art. She’s foundational, iconic, studied, collected. But she might not have a place in your story. And that doesn’t make you wrong. Taste — not good or bad, just your own — is part of how you move through the world with curiosity and intent.

We need more room for honesty when we talk about art. Not just reverence and not just rejection, but something in between. A space for sitting with what doesn’t quite land. Not everything has to be sacred. Not everything deserves to be trashed. Sometimes it’s just not your thing. And sometimes that’s the beginning of a much more interesting conversation.

So what’s the work you’ve never quite connected with, even though everyone else seems to worship it?

When was the last time you let yourself not like something, and owned it?

Let the work speak. And if it mumbles, tell someone.

Hayley Walmsley (Ngāti Kawau, Ngāti Tautahi, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) is an artist, writer, and curator based in Ōtautahi. She makes work about art, systems, and the sneaky ways meaning gets made, and sometimes missed. She writes No Neutral Spaces because she’s too grumpy to let things slide, and too soft to throw the first punch.