“I actually wrote her a letter when I went full time making art,” Bush says, “ I was young and she wrote one back.” Bush finished teaching to become a full-time artist in 2009. The nun’s passions range from the earliest Christian icons to ‘her beloved Cezanne.’ Behind her horn-rimmed glasses, the ample toothed Sister Wendy is the face of devotion to God and to art. Bush has fond memories of watching these shows. The good sister (as Bush calls her) became an international star in the 90s when she presented a series of BBC documentaries on the history of art. Sister Wendy Beckett is the author of twenty-five art history books. “She’s the nun that would talk about art on BBC television. “Have we talked about Sister Wendy yet?” Bush asks. Ceramics, Nike sneakers and brocaded fabrics adorn this scene of idolatry. On a wooden stage, the crowd gathers close, is he the sacrifice in their ceremony? Nearby bouquets of dangling doves await their fate.
“Its got windows in three directions, a corner building, bathed in light.” In her recent painting Here We Are a boy is held upside down from his ankles as though a bird. Kushana Bush lives above the town belt and passes Kereru and Tui on her walk into her Dunedin studio.
