Artist Statement
My Maori heritage on the Pa was full of old teachers and storytellers who held journeys of our geneology as sacred knowledge to be remembered as we journey through life. Our family home by the Pa was a few steps away from a freshwater stream acknowledged as a great treasure of the tribe flowing into the lake around our island of Mokoia. The stream itself reverbarates throughout the family stories told with the flow from traditional to contemporary visual storytelling ensuring my own Maori perspective and customs remained intact on another indigenous land.
We as children were taught to weave with flax and wool making patterns and symbolic stories passed on for generations. Weaving colourful conversations across my paintings I try to capture the land talking with my childhood memories knowing the sacred connection we have to listening to the earth.
Although I have experienced exhibiting my works in both competition and group settings in younger years as I got older my mother's story took priority. I chose to focus on telling her story through my eyes where each painting has many stories hidden within.
