Kawarau One (2022)

With his compelling 3D printed masks, Kereama Taepa melds the pop-culture motifs of the present with the sculptural traditions of the past. Neil Adcock builds upon the abstracted languages of the tiki and human forms with the painterly revelations inside pounamu. Figurative in nature also, Baye Riddell links the soul of the land and sea. Graham Bennett reminds us all that the ubiquitous axe was one of the primary tools for colonising the Pacific.

Peata Larkin paints narrative allusions, developing woven grids and shadow presences out of the geometries of tukutuku patterns and taniko symbols. Damien Kurth establishes pictorial tableau of the seemingly ordinary, and presents them as objects of spiritual contemplation. Hannah Kidd in her characteristic manner pays homage to three of our distinctive native birds. Phil Brooks works in series, with linking texture, pattern and palette. In the Parley Series, Brooks places “a single coil of common diameter at the rim or shoulder of every piece.” (1)

1. Parley, Artist statement, 14/3/22.