An ogee — from the Anglo-Norman, via Middle English — names a sinuous S-curve recurring across architecture and ornament, aligned with William Hogarth’s ‘line of beauty’: a form that holds movement against stasis. King noticed the motif in the grounds of the University of Otago Clocktower Building during his time as the Frances Hodgkins Fellow in Dunedin; and it later settled into the foundation for his residency exhibition, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙊𝙜𝙚𝙚 & 𝙈𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙞𝙖.

That curve finds an echo in the manaia: guardian-like figures poised in relation to the human form in Māori carving. In King’s paintings, eyes recur — watchful and peripheral. The ogee’s ‘S’ begins to resemble the manaia; both fold into the ampersand, ‘&’, while in Sāmoan, fa‘amānāīa suggests adornment and embellishment. The exhibition’s title, then, operates as a set of crossings: formal, linguistic, and perceptual — whilst remaining slightly elusive like the paintings themselves. 

Below, King discusses this body of work.