At Home on the Edge

Artist Judy Millar, 52, explains to the Financial Times that she lives “at the end of a seven-mile dusty road on Auckland’s west coast and overlooks perhaps one of the most untouched beaches on the planet.” “It’s a place where the rest of the world ceases to exist,” Millar says. From a table in the garden with a tree growing through the middle, Miller contemplates her view. There is nothing quite like it in the world. You never see a ship go past, there are no islands in view and you feel you’ve come to the edge of the world. I’m on the edge of the cliff, about 200ft above sea level. I don’t see any houses, just the view down the cliff to the beach. Jane Campion’s film The Piano was shot a couple of beaches away. My beach has black sand that sparkles in the summer because it is full of iron. It looks as if it is alive. And though the surf on the west coast is very dangerous it is the closest thing you’ll get to swimming in slightly chilled champagne.” Millar is currently representing New Zealand, with Francis Upritchard, at the Venice Biennale.