Tauranga Art Gallery - Toi Tauranga

Beware the Bears - 14 May 2010

When we think of bears, images of soft, cuddly teddy bears spring to mind along with associations of comfort and warmth.

However for many, those warm cuddly bears hide a more sinister reality. To Bernie Harfleet, these bears are the adults who abuse and kill children each year, an all too common occurrence in New Zealand.

Child abuse is a subject that Bernie Harfleet and Donna Sarten, draw attention to in their current installations Bears and Smack at Tauranga Art Gallery.

Harfleet’s Bears brings new meaning to the song ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’. For the past 25 years, Harfleet has worked with young people with disabilities, and in some cases, these disabilities have been caused by the very people they turn to for comfort and support – parents or caregivers.

“I have visited intensive care and seen babies dwarfed by the number of machines they have been plugged into keeping them alive,” says Harfleet. “And I have seen the beds empty the next day.”

Harfleet is a member of the art collective Habeas Corpus. Each member was set a task to make six boxes that reflected childhood. For Harfleet, this manifested in small, rough-sawn coffins to which he attached plaques based on real children who had suffered at the hands of ‘Bears’. The startling installation won him the 2009 Harkness Henry Lawyers Award at the Sculpturepark@Waitakaruru Arboretum.

Harfleet admits his work is not about pretty pictures or making his audience feel good.

“My art always draws strong reaction from viewers, either positive or negative with no-one in between. The audience that this work needs to reach is all of us. The people who harm, abuse and kill children are beyond being ‘reached’ by this work.”

Sarten’s work Smack, is equally hard hitting. Sarten’s punch bag superimposed with a child’s doe-eyed face is a metaphor for the horrific abuse children suffer at the hands of family members.

Sarten herself came from a ‘Once Were Warriors’ childhood, an all too common situation for many children in New Zealand, and one she aims to highlight with her raw, emotive work.

“I want people to sit up and notice. Several people have cried when they have seen the work. Surprisingly some people have hit the bag.”

Both Sarten and Harfleet’s work focuses on the darker aspects of life read about in daily newspapers, but too often forgotten once the page has been turned.

As Harfleet says, “I want children to see this work, with their families. Bears is about adults, and children should be made well aware of these ‘Bears’.”

Bears and Smack can be viewed at Tauranga Art Gallery until 11 July. Bernie Harfleet will give a floortalk on his work at 1pm on Saturday 29 May. Entry will be a gold coin donation.