List of Works A to C
3 Black Swans The swans swim up the awa all year around with their young. Unafraid they would swim past my aunties as they washed laundry along the river bank platforms. My family had no washing machines instead they hit their clothes with a patu beating out the dirt with fresh water and sunlight soap. I remember watching the swans swim through the soap suds as they made their way up the awa to bath in the sun at Taniwha Springs.
2020 Size 60cm x 9Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
3 Baskets 2 Stones The battle for the baskets of knowledge between Tane and Whiro is a famous story of hidden understandings. Each version is filled with proverbs and incite to human nature contained in the baskets and stones. They represented both good and evil for Maori who were guided to use its seed of concept in the formation of the wharekura and later formal wharenui across Aotearoa.
2026 Size 60cm x 9Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
7 Medicine Bowls depicts the old wisdom and knowledge passed down from my whanau captured in bowls of modern mediums. Spiritual healing, Maori dreaming and earth signs in nature and its creatures have meaning for descending iwi. Outlawed by european laws until modern times tohunga practises and knowledge continued to be passed on through oral teachings on the land.
2018 Size 60cm x 9Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
The Female Artist Self portrait living overseas and connecting home through music and story from another land. Art becomes a spiritual conversation between indigenous cultures when living away from our own land. The similar customs and protocols heightens those Maori lessons learnt from childhood.
1998 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
A Breastplate The mana of women to procreate in Maori culture has many tapu perspectives concerning the monthly cycle and birth itself. Gardening was outlawed for a women's monthly cycle as their blood could not come into contact with the toiled lands. The afterbirth sack was taken and buried under a tree as a sacred vessel connecting the child through her mother's womb to papakainga land.
2019 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
The Awa Ceremony I watched my Pop stand by the river and karakia to his family who had passed on generations before I was born. I saw him bless ornate treasures of his family and clean his Maori bible with old old words I have not heard in modern times of te reo. Papa and his brothers would meet at the old church across the river to discuss matters of their family and lands. The old ways of my Pops time were more respectful of natures presence. They softened their voices with specific tones to attune sound so past present and future listen in to their korero.
2023 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Bridge of Awahou Like all tribes Rangiwewehi have many whangai children from other tribal families and siblings. In old times exchanging children sealed land and bloodlines for Maori. For Awahou we believe once baptised in the awa whangai are forever linked to our rivers mauri.
2017 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
A Doorway Home relates to the eye of Tama Te Kapua and his spiritual talisman on the Pa. His all seeing eye is an old Maori proverb mum used to describe her wharenui in a spiritual way when talking about big mana for a tribe. The walls of the wharenui listen in on everything maori in the big house. The wharenui awakens with signs recognised by those sensitive to maori sight.
2025 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
A Royal Game of Cards Gatherings followed much older customs and rituals for people of Rangiwewehi during my greatgrandfather's time. Strategies to safeguard tribal ways against growing colonial perspectives were serious matters for nga iwi to discuss as they still are today. Maori hold a trump card in their deck with the Treaty of Waitangi but even that is being eroded by the games of pakeha words made law.
2023 Size 1.2m^ Acrylics on Canvas
Ahi Koinga The way of the fire. During my nanny's time home heat and cooking came from a fire made on a corregated piece of iron in the centre of a one room house. Their home had an opening in the top for the smoke to escape and dirt floors my nanny would weave muka whariki and tell stories by fire light. Mum and her siblings slept on toitoi down filled potato sacks they refilled every few days in the bush around them.
1998 Size 6Ocm^ Acrylics on Canvas
An Island Resume Those taonga we hold sacred give us mana for our journey into life. Land water and spirit have intangible weapons we can shield ourselves with in the pakeha world when intuitions are high. Rangatahi raised through the kohungareo system today wear their understanding of our Maori world on their sleeves as they go through life.
2020 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
Band of Brothers The Awahou Leagues Club was created in the 1800s to share an abundance of food resources like watercress fish and wild pig to support surrounding whangai communities doing without during pakeha settlement. Although hard times for all my family celebrated life with fun music poetry and lots of laughs performing for visitors and friends at the old clubhouse. Set on the banks of the awa the music was carried across the water for all around the motu to hear.
2024 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
Basket of Knowledge Every nanny has a story in their basket of knowledge for their mokopuna. This work retells the story of how old practices of knowledge carried through sacred bloodlines of the earth were part of the tohunga skills to connect with land and water. Watching mum stand to perform her karakia here in Australia reminded me of the Te Arawa landing and our canoe buried upright on land facing the stars to call home.
2024 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
Blue Swan Represents the teaching of nga karanga by my older sister. For Awahou it represents all the aunties and nannies who stood and stand with grace and strength to call manuhiri on to our pa.
2018 Size 5Ocm x 7Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
Branches of a cherrytree Polynesians are masters of breeding and their lessons come from observing nature. Mokopuna are like the new shoots of a tree extending from and imbedded to know the land with love.
2020 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
Butterflies Nature and flowers birds and bees these were my mother's favourite pasttimes. She loved gardening and hoeing the soil while reciting karakia to the land beneath her feet.
2019 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
Cards Under the Cherrytree Weaving stories around the shuffle of cards. The click click of knitting needles, kids in the background swimming, babies being cooed by their nannies. All familiar memories to stimulate the senses of old perspectives woven under the cherrytree. It was a ritual of our mum's to have card games under her cherrytree with her many cousins and family of Awahou. For us it meant free time to swim and play.
1998 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
Cards Under the Cherrytree 3 The peace of nature watching my kuia play cards. They told stories of our taniwha Pekehaua and how he was captured after eating people in the bush. They trapped him with a net and ate from his flesh to unite the spirits of those lost to his hunger.
2023 Size 75cm x 9Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
Cards on a Blanket Professional card sharks were quite common around the motu. After funerals in the old days the kuia would gather themselves prepared to travel to play cards with friends who they also networked with for community causes. It was a way of passing news about the latest whakapapa and tangi going on at their Pa.
2020 Size 5Ocm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
The Chief & his Puhi Papa's older brother was named a Te Arawa chief before I was born. His youngest sister Tawera remained apart from the pakeha world only mingling at hui. She maintained handwoven puipui as her preferred dress and did her own hunting and gathering sleeping in nature rather than at home. The pakeha authorities and the church tried many times to put her in a mental asylum because she refused to speak or act English around pakeha so Papa let her live her life free. She passed away at 18 found peacefully asleep in the bush across the awa.
2014 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
