List of Works A to C
3 Black Swans The swans return with their young and swim up the awa as they have done for generations. They represent to me the strength and reliability of my aunties and nannies.
2020 Size 60cm x 9Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
7 Medicine Bowls depicts the wisdom and knowledge passed down from my mum and her sisters. Spiritual healing dreams and signs in nature or the tribe had parallel meanings for my family.
2018 Size 60cm x 9Ocm Acrylics on Canvas
The Female Artist
Self portrait living overseas connecting home through modern mahi on another's indigenous land.
1998 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
A Breastplate The mana of wahine to procreate in Maori culture has many tapu perspectives concerning the monthly cycle and birth itself. The afterbirth sack was taken and buried under a tree as a sacred vessel connecting the child to the 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 have passed on. I saw him bless ornate treasures of his family and clean his bible with old old words not spoken in modern times of te reo. Mum said he and his brothers would meet at the old church to discuss matters of their family and lands into the future and we carried this practise forward.
2023 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
The Bridge of Awahou
Like all tribes Rangiwewehi have many whangai children from other families and siblings. It is a natural part of our spiritual realm to raise another's child with your own or as your own.
2017 Size 5Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas
A Doorway Home relates to the eye of Tama Te Kapua and his spiritual talismans inside the wharenui and surrounding Pa. This is an old Maori proverb mum used to describe her wharenui in a spiritual way when talking about big mana.
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 ancestor's time. Strategies to safeguard tribal ways against colonial perspectives were serious matters carried forward to today. The Maori hold a trump card in their deck with the Treaty of Waitangi.
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 my nanny would weave muka by the light as mum and her siblings slept.
1998 Size 6Ocm^ Acrylics on Canvas
An Island Resume Those taonga we hold sacred give us mana. Land water and spirit have intangible weapons we shield ourselves with in the pakeha world.​
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 my family celebrated life with fun music poetry and lots of laughs performing for visitors and friends at the old clubhouse.
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 through land and water.
2024 Size 75cm x 6Ocm Acrylics on Canvas​
Blue Swan Represents the teaching of nga karanga. For Awahou it represents all the aunties who have stood with grace and strength in place of their nannies and called 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 tree branches extending from and imbedded to know the land.
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.
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 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 those lost with a way home.
2023 Size 75cm x 9Ocm Acrylics on Canvas ​
Cards on a Blanket Professional card sharks were sometimes a name given to a great card player. Maori had a hobby of card counting to bet against their odds.
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 by following old practises with the land dressing hunting and gathering by herself. The pakeha authorities and the church tried to put her in a mental asylum because she refused to speak or act English around pakeha.
2014 Size 9Ocm x 75cm Acrylics on Canvas​
