Panthalassa | Natchez Hudson

Natchez Hudson paints exquisitely detailed mountain ranges, inverted, upended and floating in fields of colour. By bisecting, obscuring, and sitting them with abstract elements, he examines landscape painting’s contemporary utility, disrupting its ordinary function as a ‘window to the world’.

In this exhibition, a central installation presents an impossible geography: vertically protruding shards of landscape invite disorientation as these seemingly massive and permanent things are tipped on their sides.

Panthalassa was the superocean that surrounded Pangaea, the ancient continent formed from almost all landmasses on Earth. For Hudson, Panthalassa is a useful analogy for our current era of climate change and sea level rise; a reminder of our deficiencies in comprehension and reticence to reconcile to these processes.

Originally from Opotiki, Natchez Hudson graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts in 2001 and is currently based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington.

Main image: Natchez Hudson, Helicoprion (detail), 2026, cast acrylic, stainless steel and acrylic paint. Image courtesy of Milford Galleries.