Monkey on Fire Horse - curatorial response by Sinag Fernandez

‘馬上封侯’ is a Chinese idiom that describes a quick advancement or rise in status, and more literally translates to ‘monkey on horse’.

Through referencing Chinese Zodiac signs and colonial imagery, the work ‘馬上封侯’ examines how the artist’s mixed-race identity might sit alongside her Pākehā ancestors in a contemporary context, and how cross-cultural methodologies and frameworks shape her research and practice.

Audrey Goggin is a London-born Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist currently in the final year of her BFA at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. Her practice is based primarily in oil paint, using primary source research as a starting point to explore themes of identity and belonging in relation to her ethnically mixed and immigrant background.