List of Works T
Taniwha Springs Our story is our own to tell thats what Uncle Peter taught me. He called men roosters and women chickens. He would enjoy a drink while talking about old stories of Pekehaua and Hinerua and our stories of the real mountain patupairere around the motu. When I was little matua would come to visit with pop enjoying watercress from our awa and talking with mum about family matters and land. My memories of the awa are always linked through their way of seeing. I saw in my work the flow of spiritualness down a path of a crystal clear water. Banks of watercress from the bridge bus stop at the top of the road down to the river mouth. Today that watercress is part of the spring myths as its gone but not forgotten as family still fight to turn off the city council pumps.
2017 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
Taheke Road the story of the pine tree afterbirths making sacred blood threads from our papakainga up to the north on nanny's land. In all our years up north mum never forgot home. When she was much older her brother Motutapu came up north with a crowd from Shannon. He sent out word on the marae that he was looking for his sister Lila but up north mum went by Ripeka after their nanny there. Mum packed up blankets meat and kai from the farm as the marae Motutapu was staying at was so poor they didn't have enough for visitors which was common before the pakeha shared finances with Maori. They spent the whole night catching up and exchanging knowledge they both remembered from their koroua. In this mahi the houses represent uncle's whangai house weaving his threads back home through the memories mum gave him of his Awahou whakapapa.
2022 Size 6Ocm^ Acrylics on Canvas
Tarimano the Navigator The sacred stone of Rangiwewehi buried beneath the wharenui. The secrets of its old mana sealed for another time when the stars entertained the tribe as they navigated nature together. Those touched by the stone's magic created forms and images representing the mana of our taonga. I watched mum over here in Australia call up Tarimano to seal my home when she was getting too old to visit and continue her storytelling.
2018 Size 6Ocm x 90cm Acrylics on Canvas
Tawakaheimoa A house of hidden wairua that awakens the chief during formal and informal occasions. Where the chapel is converted to Maori ways and customs for all occasions. His everlistening spirit there to remove our enemies seeking entry on our papakainga lands.
2018 Size 1.2cm ^ Acrylics on Canvas
Midwife the story of Tawera who hunted the uruwera for prey and fish to fill her belly. She lived a full short life enjoying living in the bush only returning for hui and tangi alike. She would bring game or fish and sit and eat her fill then disappear back to the bush. The Hei Tiki represents here her reflection in the stars and nature around the awa.
1997 Size 70cm x 90cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Ao Marama the true wonder of experiencing the wairua of feminine forces in time. The spiritual meanings behind the rainbow.
2014 Size 50cm^ Acrylics on Canvas
Te Ao Ngahoro the wharekai named for the chief's first wife. The place where women are in charge and a room can be filled with feminine force equal to their mens. The laughter and togetherness during cooking and serving times captured in her aura.
2022 Size 60cm x 90cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Arawa Migration The passing on of old knowledge woven through a well of new threads of influence. Uncle Jimmy's backyard had the most tranquil peace for me by the awa water. When trees fell across the awa it just made it easier to get to the other side so we left them there. When we were sent on holidays back to Awahou uncle would call to me sitting on the tree across the awa to come and say hello. Always he would ask about mum up north and how were all the family going up there. Then he would start talking about whakapapa and our obligations to its lifeforce. He would talk about mum's mahi around the pa when she was younger and how the old people loved her running the wharekai. His stories filled me with understanding of why mum made at least three or four trips home a year not including any family and friends tangi at Awahou. They were a very close family Jimmy would say when he showed me the bound books of whakapapa he kept in his whare.
2016 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Arawa Navigation In the Mamaku mountains there lays a buriel place on old whenua. These type of dreams are tapu to Maori raised the old way. Mum had many dreams where she woke up to karakia them away. When we were young Auntie kato's house was full of colourful energies of differing Maori travelling from afar to speak with her and cousin Georgie. It was like a great iwi migration in her whare. Uncle johnny would sit out the back away from all the activities going on inside and tell me stories from the northern nannies married back into Te Arawa. He told me auntie kato kept running home to Awahou when they lived up north thats why mum later took her place up there. Their house was always busy with visitors who sought solice from their own dreams or illness as auntie was a practising healer back then. Te Arawa was comforting and so different from the northern ways we learnt about and I knew like mum I would navigate my way back to Awahou.
2016 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Awa The blessing of an arranged marriage for peace between tribes threaded by blood and land this is the baptism of our awa. The story of the river wives in the english bible. They are sometimes described as a black swan hidden in the folds of nature. Awahou river named for Pekehaua has many stories from our families about the magic and mystery of life in nature. When I sit and listen to the awa flow I see in my mind all that magic captured in memories of koroua and kuia blessings and stories, kai, healing properties and more expressed in colour and form. The memory of the awa is timeless in the visual languages of my mahi.
2017 Size 9Ocm x 60cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Motu Mokoia Island the burial place of old Te Arawa chiefs and the weaving of mokopuna into the future.
2019 Size 9Ocm x 60cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Inoi Ariki Nanny Puti refused to have her photo taken due to her superstitions about the camera. She practised old karakia weaving chants into her daily chores as she worked. Living separate from any outside hapu she preferred nature to company like mum keeping her own gifts to herself.
2022 Size 9Ocm x 60cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Kanohi O Tama Te Kapua The all-seeing eye of Tama Te Kapua and the bloodlines of his old eye through the generations ahead. His skills as an orator and navigator are remembered through song and dance. Mum was awesome when she talked about the cunning and wit of her chief and she would always raise her hand when she called Ko Rotorua nui a kahumatamoemoe ko te moana.
2022 Size 9Ocm x 60cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Kore the time of eternal nothing before matter separated in the universe. To mum's sacred eye it was the haven of original creative wonder hidden in darkness long before water and humans were formed. I imagine the kaos of nature's beginnings around the motu before Rotorua became a lake when looking into the water and mud of our hot springs.
1999 Size 50cm^ Acrylics on Canvas
Te Kupu of the North shows the dreaming of papakainga land. Back in the 60s our Hakopa family reunion was held up north at Te Ahuahu where Awahou took up a bus for the weekend festivities. There is a photo showing papa and his daughters all together up north. When mum looked at this photo we received years later she began talking about how she would leave the north and return to be buried in Awahou. Morbid words if your not Maori but well planned if you are.
2022 Size 1.2m^ Acrylics on Canvas
![Te Kupu [Of the North]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/b911da_f226b5baa2fe4f9c91f86833837c3b3e~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_247,h_243,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Te%20Kupu%20%5BOf%20the%20North%5D.jpg)
Te Kupu o Tupuna shows the chief and his marakihau rising from within Poutama to take their place through rememberance in our Te Arawa universe. On another level it is the weave of our koroua and kuia as they transfer knowledge to their descendants generation after generation. Marakihau can be seen as good and bad in Maori stories depending where your tribe stands as these stories like others were ways of passing on knowledge and understanding of human wairua. We acknowledge our beginning from water just like the marakihau.
2016 Size 1.2m^ Acrylics on Canvas
Te mahi maunga Games of skiing on cardboard down the mountain waiting for the school bus. Being at one with the mountain listening to the laugh of nga tamariki as the land weaves their threads in memory. I realised at uni that others there may not have understood my mahi but they loved my stories from home sparking memories of childhood for themselves.
2023 Size 6Ocm^ Series 7/12 A dozen Nappies Acrylics on Canvas
Ten Guitars playing in the old club house down by the river. The meaning of the Guitar to Maoridom through the generations is like a chief within itself to communicate maori words of knowledge with beautiful sounds. As kids we would find our way into the clubhouse to watch Bebe and ngatirangiwewehi have their cultural practises. It made me feel special when Bebe would perform to me her beautifully rich voice would ring in my ears. Georgie would be playing the guitar and auntie kato would be at the front teaching from the meanings of her creative waiata and chants.
2023 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Big Chapel Maori ancestral business requires similar spiritualities and customs the church practised. Our maori culture embraces the similarities of paiperatapu embedding its words within a much greater universe of understanding life and death for humans. Our korero and song weave our feelings into colour as we climb the ladder of life into Poutama.
2020 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Chapel Built by the families of Awahou on the Pa. The chapel represents the faith of our families to share as mokopuna in the way of our beliefs. The old way of oral knowledge and wisdom are entwined by custom and sealed with paipera tapu separate from the wharenui practices. Mum brought us all into the church and had us stand in a circle after our first sister passed early in life. To ensure nothing from her own whakapapa was involved with this maori sight of hers mum prepared her childrens wairua for the future in the chapel's presence rather than the wharenui. The faith of all who built the chapel bore witness to her decisions. Darby sat back and Rosa and Koro stood. I saw the weave of arms as a pattern arose with each bowing and pointing until all knew their place in the circle. You dare not laugh when mum was in charge and we were a cheeky bunch when together.
2016 Size 6Ocm x 5Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
The Cherrytree Island Tangatawhenua thread their blood into the land with every afterbirth. A family of the Big Cherrytree describes identifying the place where generations of placenta are given in care to the shielding spirit of the family plot. We are no different as we continue the practice of our tupuna. Mum taught me to bury my own kids whenua beneath a flower bush I could move as I was renting overseas. Some today take part of the pito back to be buried under the pepper tree on the papakainga.
2018 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Cloak of Jacob's Well The warrior holds the head of his enemy in his hands looking to the next challenger to his mona. When Te Arawa brought Katene the minister over to Sydney in the 80s mum was visiting us there so she stood up to welcome her waka to Australia. We performed E kimo noa ana to chant the path of our navigation here. I saw people like uncle sam and auntie nellie along with Taki Clarke. Mum was both happy and sad as her sister ella stayed home. That night at the celebrations there was a competition between Te Arawa and another tribe over the song Paikea. Mum brushed it off and told me to take a print I made to uncle sam and see if he could read the message of the work Te Kupu. He replied to her through me with the song about the Mona Lisa. Uncle said one day someone would offer me money I couldn't refuse and I would sell our gifts to the highest bidder. Mum laughed and told me he doesn't know who he's talking to as he was just looking after the family cloak for Pop.
2016 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Couch A nickname for Te Paepae. The place of old old men where the masculine force is at home with his mana and feet on the earth he speaks from. Specifically woven whakapapa steeped in custom and ritual when a man speaks to the living carvings and weavings in the wharenui. Papa Bob kept his bed in the wharenui facing the threshold entrance long before new furniture replaced the whariki. He lifted me up once and pointed to the manuhiri out the door whispering we were better than all of them because we had magic up our sleeves.
2017 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Door in the Wall describes the feeling of wairua and mana when we sleep in the wharenui on formal occasions. It was wonderous laying on the mattress looking up to the kowhaiwhai rafters of colour and across to the carvings when sleeping in the wharenui. Some would be playing cards in a corner others sitting up on chairs sharing knowledge of old. The atmosphere was something I couldn't express to my fellow pakeha students when studying. They saw it as I did, another world I stepped into each time we landed in Aotearoa.
2017 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Drum of a Village Around the motu the old families gather and share in the community gardens they tended during the depression. Land rights and Maori revitalisation were strong around the motu as the drum beats went out to call koroua and kuia to hui about our mokopuna's future on the land. Politics were encased in karakia and tupuna are remembered in the battle of wits with pakeha governments at all levels. For Awahou it was the awa. The council used the public works act to take take take for their modernisation of Rotorua. Rotorua had many natural beauties tourists paid to see and Maori continue to fall through the gaps of village life as progress builddozers the rights of belonging.
2011 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Farm Up North We moved up north away from Awahou when we were at primary school. It was so different from the Pa up there and we as kids stuck together. Dad made us work hard when we were old enough and he didn't separate girl from boy when farm work called. I enjoyed helping mum in the gardens but dodged any housework on the farm. Mum would take us girls with her back on visits to Awahou while our brothers stayed up north working the farm with dad. As we all became adults returning back to Awahou was just like returning home as we never forget where we come from.
2020 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Feminine Flute from a Dozen nappies series
The weave of the mokoia island bushlife produces peace and tranquility for its visitors.
2023 Size 6O^cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Flute mum reminded me we didn't come of the line of Tutanekai so don't become mesmerised by his flute. Our whakapapa at Awahou is steeped in very old practices Jacob Hakopa turned his back on. Papa Bob said karakia every night of his life building thread upon thread of wairua and mana weaving his whakapapa back to Jacob. Mum had her bible by her bed all through her life and referred to it in lessons she gave me. I would be mesmerised listening to her voice rise and fall as she recited her karakia just like flute chords telling me the tone of your voice matters when citing prayer with the earth.
2013 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Gold Swan The Awahou marae is like a golden swan cared for by the whole tribe. A reflection of our giving to those who come to share kai with us on all occasions our tables were laiden with colour. Auntie Alice helped decorate the tables in the old wharekai for my sister's wedding. She asked me if I would marry or follow in the footsteps of my namesake. Alice said with her own humour that she was shrinking into a mountain but I saw her as a golden swan who made the best corn fritters in Rotorua. One memory my brother and I stayed with Auntie and Uncle Heinga went missing and had gone to a party next door. I always thought matua couldn't walk as auntie waited on him in his bed.
2017 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Good Sheppard Church connecting to home through Paipera Tapu. Living away from home mum said I could step into a church anywhere and connect my feet home. I find peace in the church as I sit there not listening to the preacher but feeling the atmosphere of faith. Uncle Katene would sometimes make me a cup of tea while mum frowned from our kitchen window to get home from next door. He would talk about the chapel up at the Pa and the importance of faith before belief. Auntie kato and mum would say the same thing about faith before belief as the way forward by spirit when it came to the pakeha church.
2021 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Harp in the Tree A memory of mum's brothers and sisters. The tree represents the male line and the harp the female line of our own Hakopa and Tiatoa/Maihi whakapapa. The creativity of our bloods sing of a rich history for our mokopuna to take from as they themselves journey forward in life. What do we give back when our gifts belong to everyone mum would ask me when I talked about selling my mahi she had blessed with stories. I asked her what she wanted for the knowledge given to me she replied one word, share.
2020 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Lakehouse reflections of protocols and customs of wharenui from around Lake Rotorua. The lakehouse was a raging place of music and fun with its nightclub and everyone there enjoyed the fun, We would return home and go out with our cousins starting there and ending at Ngongotaha pub having fun. Auntie ella was always looking for kato when my sister came visiting from Australia. She would take the kids around in the morning to auntie and disappear after lunch until the next day. Mum would placate her sister saying they were just as bad when they were young leaving the kids with fathers while enjoying a party or two themselves.
2017 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Mamaku Mountains Keepers the sacredness of our maunga. Totems represent three generations at any one time. The further up the mountain we seek the closer we come to our past. Those who remember the old ways share knowledge and understanding to keep our tupuna fresh in mind when reciting whakapapa on such mana like talking mountains.
2022 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Matador Our afterbirths from generations go back to Mokoia Island and are remembered within chants and stories of old. I would sit with mum while she drifted back in her memory to old stories of our island and shore people with very old practises. Her knowledge was vast as she wove patterns with her stories showing me the signs of tupuna and nature in my work.
2018 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Matadors Cane Speaks of the wisdom of the living tokotoko and their holding of knowledge when koroua ride their korero. Movement and tone set the path back in time as the paepae speaks. When the cane lifts to ranginui the spark of energy received by the speaker opens the veil between worlds.
2018 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Matriarch it represents the feminine qualities of faith before beliefs in the art of healing with natural resources. I remember the first time I saw sister Ruby I was a child. She stepped from Darby's car at Awahou and I saw her firey red hair in the sun. Her skin so pale yet so Maori to me. She was a born healer and her skills were seen and known by many. When she and Darby came to Australia for the rongoa people were surprised they were my family.
2020 Size 9Ocm x 60cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Mountain & the Keeper An old story about the tohunga who guarded our maunga Ngongotaha long ago when his spirit still stirred in the night. Old Maori buried their tupapaku bones in caves after the flesh was removed in those times. Today that would be an illegal practice. This connection with the earth was carried from life to death for them as they literally returned to the mountain bush for eternity. Mum would tell me stories of dreams to show how their spirit world was active in another time to life.
2021 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Mountain and the Puhi I would go and visit with Auntie Sarah sometimes and when asked she would continue with stories about our lands both mythical and historical. In her house she kept the photos of our koroua and kuia who she like mum talked about often. I was amazed at mum and her sisters natural knowledge of oral whakapapa when asked the right questions. Sometimes they argued amongst themselves about the order of knowledge but never about the meaning behind their lessons. Uncle Wylie adored Sarah as she raised him first when nanny passed over. It was hard for him when she married and moved away to town. Mum would take him to visit most weeks but said it was always hard for him as a child to leave Sarah.
2017 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Old Church and the Tree our tupuna built and gathered at the old church across the awa whose trees along the banks hid the spiritual beauty of life within. In a dream I saw this long haired Maori on the steeple roof reaching up to me looking down from the stars. He smiled when I refused his hand and landed on the ground where the new chapel would be built in the future. Mum laughed when I told her my dream but she never explained her own interpretation of it.
2016 Size 6Ocm x 5Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
The Old Pa was moved from across the river to its new position along the bank. The sacred stone Tarimano buried beneath the blessed land by old kararia envoking the Maori gods. I hear the names of our old taonga and remember fondly the past across the awa. All mum said was those were really hard times no one wants to go back to.
2017 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Pacific Cherrytree when my eldest sister was proposed to by her Tokelau husband Toma. He and his family brought gifts and laid these on the front lawn of our home when he came to ask Dad for Bebe's hand. There were exotic fruits and berries, woven mats and floral fabrics of rainbow colouring that stay in my memories and decorate my mahi today.
2017 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Paddle is the first tool under the stars to cut the water sharply when the waka chief navigates. The paddles are marked with sacred stories of our earthly beginnings and the guardians who voyaged for us. The mere patu that hangs on the wall of the wharenui holds many stories for the people. It is brought out for tangi to bare witness to the occasion as a tupuna representative of both land and water.
2018 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Pepper Tree where all our family afterbirths are buried is a sacred place we still use today. The tree has mana and healing properties for the family that some say are accessed through chant and song. A living being sharing in our genes thats how I see our pepper tree.
2018 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Shoe & the Book My great grandfather was superstitious about the english bible after it was translated into Maori. Hehe kept his bible in a tree outside his home. He saw ritual and custom of Maori flowing through the old story of Jacob's dream about the ladder to heaven opening up. This to his Maori perspective was a simple pathway to Poutama the stairway to heaven. Mum said I could use this name Poutama for my exhibition after I fulfilled my obligations to her.
2016 Size 6Ocm x 5Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
The Sun Dial The island weaves out whakapapa from one tribal thread around the motu to another. Away from the city our customs and practises are a way of life for many still. Rotorua still amazes me how the old stands strong as the new grows ever silently larger pushing my cousins from their homelands for progress. Before money life was much better for the motu and that past will never return.
2021 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Teapot Tells the story of pouring a cup of tea in the service of the Pa. A sacred duty all perform in their lives when we were younger. To Māori when a child makes their kuia and koroua a cup of tea this is medicine with mana and lifeforce in it. Good Maori humour was always used to get a job done by the old people and I try to capture their humour with colour and forms.
2023 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Weave of Medicine Healing the land through gift of faith and old chants is a practice of our tohunga who were outlawed by the pakeha. Once when I came home mum raised a photo of her eldest sister up for me to look into while saying to me, we have tohunga too. Sometimes it was hard to understand mum when her wairua came out. She was so attuned to who she was in her own home space. Out would come the kawakawa plant and on my head it would go while she called her sister kato or ella to speak beyond my ears in te reo. It was always about home and usually something about the papakainga of our family. Although the cherrytrees were gone their spirit held true visions to mum.
2022 Size 6Ocm^ Acrylics on Canvas
The Whirlpool Highlights the spiritual meaning of the whirlpool and the great tohunga Ngatoiroirangi. His ability to awaken the earth with a whirlpool in anger is retold by many Maori artists of Te Arawa. For me he was the ultimate tohunga of our region.
2019 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
Three Sisters mum raised us as bicultural children where we attended the pakeha church for confirmation in their faith whilst practising Maori ways of life down on the Pa. There was a picture taken of mum and two of her sisters with an old carving returned to Rangiwewehi I remember this photo in my painting on another level.
1997 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
Tohunga Wairua speaks about the tohunga lineage of my northern nannies. Mum reconnected with many of her northern cousins from nanny puti's family at pa and family functions. We would be told for hours how they all fit in to us at Awahou as whakapapa was a weaving artform for her.
2022 Size 60cm^ Acrylics on Canvas
Rua Waka transferring ta moko to canvas. Tells of the two whakapapa of my grandparents and their grandparents in colour. When two very strong families join together there is always a battle of whose whakapapa to hold true to. Some will only go back as far as their parents while others ride the waves of tupuna lore and try to encompass nga iwi in their whakapapa. Mum always kept a seal between anything before Jacob to everything after when she wrote the whakapapa for my mahi. In the north she only went back as far as the peacemaker nanny puti's grandfather Papa Tiatoa.
2001 Size 96cm x 28cm Acrylics on Canvas
Tawakaheimoa a lover and chief in his own rite. Speaking his name brings forth an invitation to woo enemies of old by breath of tongue when speaking before the walls of the wharenui. To hold his attention with devine intervention that is the way I see this warrior in his time. Mum said he was a performer in his own rite when the old people told his stories of guarding the whenua.
2018 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
Two Chiefs Talking represents the big hui where the families from Te Arawa and Ngapuhi agreed to intermarry and bring a new leaf of mokopuna to both whakapapa. It is a dream of Papa speaking on the paepae up north sealing his line of female succession with another chief. First held by auntie kato and later mum's Tai Tokerau descendants we acknowledge our nanny in the north.
2019 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
Te Mauri the aura surrounding the lifeforce of our Pa and the surrounding lands. How do we describe the feeling of coming home to our Pa. Koro told me it was the chief on the steeple calling with lifeforce to our wairua as we get closer to our papakainga.
2020 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
Two Swans Make a Hei Tiki definition of the twoheaded Hei Tiki was like being a one rainbow swan. I watched the swans mating and saw how they wrapped their necks around each other reminding me of a hei tiki floating on water. I saw mum and her sisters children of two swans from the north giving them strength as women who could easily hold their own in public.
2021 Size 6Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
