Whangarei Art Museum chairwoman councillor Sharon Morgan and Maori Advisory Panel chairwoman Elizabeth Ellis say the proposed Hundertwasser Art Centre has plenty of potential for Northland and all of New Zealand.

A unique Maori art gallery is a key part of the Hundertwasser Art Centre proposed for the Town Basin.

The $13.6 million project will include New Zealand’s only dedicated, curated Maori art gallery.

It will sit alongside a gallery dedicated to Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s artworks, the only one outside his native Vienna.

Please read the full article  at stuff.co.nz by Denise Piper.

Shane Cotton is one of New Zealand’s best-known contemporary painters. History, politics and art are the subject of his work and the intersection of bicultural heritage (he is Ngapuhi and Pakeha) has been a running theme.

Shane has exhibited widely, both in New Zealand and internationally including exhibits at the Asia Society Museum (New York); the Anna Schwartz Gallery (Melbourne) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney). He was New Zealand’s representative at the Prague Bienniale in 2005 and his work was included in the 17th Biennale of Sydney in 2010. He was one of 108 global artists invited to participate in the 2011 exhibition Roundabout in Tel Aviv.

In 2008, Shane received a Laureate Award from the New Zealand Arts Foundation and, in 2012 was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the visual arts.

Shane came to Palmerston North to assume the role of lecturer at Massey University in the Maori Visual Arts Programme. In 2005, he became a full-time artist and continues to live in the city.

Sandy’s paintings are more closely associated with the rafter patterns of the traditional meeting house.

However, he projected the idea of Kowhawhai (rafter patterns) from the ancestral house and re-interpreted them in large rectangular form for exhibition in galleries. The curvilinear forms of swirling and soaring koru designs and patterns have inspired younger artists. Unfortunately, none have had the benefit of working on many of the rafters of meeting houses in New Zealand to perfect their relationship to the art form in its original setting.

He has exhibited throughout New Zealand and many other parts of the world. His work is held several major public and private collections.

Sandy is one of the most influential artists working within Maoridom today. He has achieved this through his work in art education and as the founding chairman of Te Atinga, the contemporary Maori art committee of Toi Maori Aotearoa.

He is currently the senior tutor at Toimairangi, Contemporary Maori Arts School, of Te Wananga o Aotearoa in Hastings.

Manos Nathan has long been considered one of New Zealand’s leading clay artists. Many of his recent works combine the exquisite lines of his mother’s Greek culture and his father’s Maori Culture. His work is immaculately constructed and designed.

Nathan has exhibited extensively both in New Zealand and overseas and his works are found in a number of public and private collections worldwide including the British Museum, Museum of Scotland, Burke Museum, Seattle, USA, Japan and Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington.

“In my efforts to create an identity for works in clay, I have adapted design and symbolism from the customary art forms of wood, stone and bone carving; from ta moko and from the fibre arts of ta niko and tukutuku. I have also drawn on the rich heritage of allegory and metaphor found in pakiwaitara, purakau and pepeha (folklore, myths/legends and proverbs) as a source of inspiration for the creation of Maori clayworks.”

He was represented in the Te Waka Toi exhibition that toured the USA in 1992/94. His work was exhibited in Fusion: Tradition & Discovery in 1999 and in Kiwa – Pacific Connections in 2003 at the Spirit Wrestler Gallery in Vancouver, Canada.

New Zealand exhibitions in which his work has been shown include: Taiawhio – continuity and change in 2002 and Nga Toko Rima: contemporary clayworks in 2003/04 at Te Papa.

He was also a driving force behind Toi Maori: Art from the Maori People of New Zealand that saw over 20,000 visitors flock to San Francisco to experience the art and culture of Aotearoas first people.

(Written by Elizabeth Ellis, Chair Toi Iho Kaitiaki)

Kua hinga he  totara o te wao nui a Tane
ONZ  Hone Papita Raukura ‘Ralph’ Hotere
Nona te ao,  nona te mana, nona nga ringa toi,
i ekehia te taumata teitei o te Ao Hou.

E te rangatira Ralph, maringi ana nga roimata mou kua wehea nei, waiho mai o taonga whakahirahira, hei matapihi tirohanga ki to ao .

With heartfelt grief at your loss, we take pride in being able to view your world through the windows of an empowering legacy.

Ralph Hotere: Photo by Marti Friedlander

Hone Papita Raukura (Ralph) Hotere was born in Mitimiti, Northland, in 1931, one of 11 children. He passed away in Dunedin, 24 February 2013. He was educated at Hato Petera College and Auckland Teachers’ College, and he moved to Dunedin in 1952 to specialize in art.

He became an itinerant art and crafts advisor in Te Tai Tokerau (Northland). The Maori Art Team including Katerina Mataira, Muru Walters, Arnold Wilson and Selwyn Wilson worked in schools around the north, advising students and their teachers about the nature of Maori Art. In 1958, Ralph and the team curated an exhibition of work by contemporary Maori artists in the University of Auckland’s Adult Education centre. This was the first such exhibition of contemporary Maori art in history.

Ralph was awarded a New Zealand Art Societies Fellowship to study in London at the Central School of Art in 1961. He saw this as a great chance to travel away from New Zealand for the first time and to see the world. In 1994 he was awarded an Honorary doctorate from the University of Otago and in 2005 he was conferred an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Auckland.

In 2004 Ralph accepted Te Ara Whakarei- Lifetime membership of Toi Iho, the distinctive trademark and tohu of high quality and authentic Maori art. Additionally, in 2006 he received Te Waka Toi’s Te Taumata Award in recognition of his outstanding leadership and service to Maori arts and he was awarded New Zealand’s highest honour – Membership of the Order of New Zealand – in the New Year Honours 2012.

Ralph was a magnificent, brilliant artist, a quiet, private man of his time who spoke out clearly through his beautiful artworks in support of political and social inequities and in celebration of life.

At this time he is lying in state in Tumoana, the wharenui at his beloved Mitimiti where he will be buried with his whanau in the urupa on the hill overlooking the Tasman Sea.

We mourn with his close companion and wife Mary, daughter Andrea, mokopuna, whanau, loved ones and friends. Farewell dear Ralph from Toi Iho and Maori artists everywhere. We will miss you.

For a beautiful selection tributes, please read The Listener’s article, Remembering Ralph Hotere.

Craccum, 8 June 1976. Wulf - part 1 by Ralph Hotere (left) and Ralph Hotere and Elizabeth Ellis (right).

Takoto mai, takoto mai, takoto mai.

Arohanui,

Elizabeth Ellis

Chair Toi Iho Kaitiaki.

Saturday 2 March 2013

Dr Pita Sharples.

Artists in the Waiariki area are excited  about the relaunch of the Maori trademark Toi Iho, used by Maori artists to guarantee the quality and authenticity of their work.

Creative NZ initially launched the trademark in 2002 but made a decision to disinvest in it in 2009. A new organisation, TIKI, was established to manage Toi Iho.

Well-known artist Rangi Kipa, who is based in Whakatane, has been fully supportive of the concept and was an assessor.

“It draws a distinction and, for Maori artists, it is about aspiring to do the best.”

Because of the high quality of his work, Kipa said he probably did not need to use the trademark but he was committed to encouraging its use.

He said it had been a struggle to resurrect Toi Iho and one of the issues was how the trademark was to be funded.

Members of TIKI met recently at Te Putahi a Toi – the School of Maori Studies, Massey University. Board member and artist/designer, Jacob Scott said there was an opportunity to revisit the goals of the 10-year-old trademark that used to sit under the umbrella of Creative NZ and clarify its philosophy, criteria and purpose.

New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute (NZMACI) master carver Clive Fugill, who has an honorary accreditation, has always seen the benefits of having standards.

“We need some sort of regulation – something to say this person is a good craftsperson.”

The institute has its own trademark, Te Poito (fishing net float), which acts as an independent quality measure, guaranteeing the standard of workmanship across all taonga (treasures) produced there.

Mr Scott said Toi Iho, as an established Maori trademark for authentic quality arts, culture and design, was well positioned for the future.

“The world has changed. Toi Iho has to be able to interface internationally. Toi Iho needs to be in a space where we have to be commercially viable and work with those who currently carry the cultural collateral to help provide that dimension to NZ Inc.”

Addressing the Wellington launch of the Maori contribution to NZ Inc, Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples said overseas markets and international visitors to New Zealand were increasingly receptive to the cultural distinctiveness inherent in indigenous products and services.

“Maori goods and services are unique, not just in the design or the materials, but in the way we do business. We are in a new era of business and people today want to know the story behind their product – they want to know its whakapapa (heritage),” Dr Sharples said.

Maori artists have to prove their whakapapa (heritage), qualify authenticity and high quality to use the Toi Iho trademark. There are strict guidelines around the qualifying criteria but the scope will encompass visual, performance, music, drama and literary arts.

Until the first accredited toi iho (Maori Made) artists roll out, Te Ara Whakarei or lifetime holders of toi iho are the only artists who can legitimately use the toi iho Maori trademark of quality and authenticity.

Clay sculpture artists, Manos Nathan (Te Roroa, Ngatiwhatua, Ngapuhi) (pictured) and Colleen Urlich are Te Ara Whakarei toi iho artists who will take part in an exhibition at the Quintana Gallery, Portland and Clatsop Community College Gallery, Astoria in the US late March. International participation ““continues to strengthen and celebrate the network of Indigenous artists from around the Pacific rim,”” says Urlich.

In 1995 a network, initially built on individual friendships among indigenous artists, widened significantly during the first International Indigenous Artists Symposium in New Zealand. This further extended to Evergreen College, Washington State and Hawaii where symposiums have since been hosted. Continuing interaction among the artists from the Pacific rim, and participation in each other’’s significant cross-cultural international exhibitions, festivals, and workshops, has established a robust dialogue and indigenous art community that supports increasing depths of perception and commitment to their various art forms.

The pair have been busily firing new works in taking part in a presentation but will also play a role in the advocacy of toi iho. ““This is an ideal opportunity to do the toi iho advocacy thing; we meet with people from the Halley Ford Museum, the Portland Art Museum, and the Native American Arts Council. A number of our international indigenous artists network are supportive and we will direct people to the toi iho website of course,”” says Nathan.

Both Urlich and Nathan are represented by The Spirit Wrestler Gallery a leading contemporary fine art gallery representing master Inuit, Northwest Coast and Maori artists in Vancouver. The gallery focuses on exhibitions that showcase contemporary directions in aboriginal art, including cross-cultural communication, the use of new materials (such as glass and metal), and modern interpretations of shamanism, environmental concerns, andother issues pertaining to the changing world.

The cross-cultural connection between aboriginal artists and has built the Spirit Wrestler’’s international reputation and its philosophy according to its founders : “The world is becoming increasingly smaller as artists fly in to attend overseas conferences, cultural gatherings, and artist workshops. Many of these artists are participating in art collaborations or securing international commissions. Artists communicate through their art –– bridging frontiers,languages and cultural boundaries. These lines are now becoming blurred as cultures also often share similar techniques, subject matter and designs.” ␣

Click to visit the online gallery - http://www.spiritwrestler.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=5

“there’s a self-congratulatory flavour to mainstream

designer speak affairs that inevitably lacks cultural depth. The thin justification for this is typically couched in the patter that design is an international language, but I believe the soft focus offered reflects an underlying insecurity to look beyond a superficial parading of project outputs.”  says Carin Wilson (pictured)

Media Release | 20 February 2012

TIKI – the entity charged with managing toi iho: the Maori  trademark of quality and authenticity is a step closer to accrediting qualifying users after board members met at Te Putahi a Toi – the School of Maori  Studies, Massey University last week.

TIKI board member, artist/designer, Jacob Scott, described the alignment of the toi iho discussions with comments by the Minister of Maori Affairs, Hon Dr Pita Sharples’ on the review of the Maori contribution to NZ Inc. the very next day as “perfect timing, we’re clearly on the same page and toi iho as an established Maori Trademark for authentic quality arts, culture and design is well positioned to contribute to the move forward,” said Scott.

Charged with leading TIKI’s strategic plan, Scott says the 10 year old trademark that use to sit under the umbrella of Creative NZ, now has the opportunity to revisit its goals and clarify its philosophy, criteria and purpose. “The world has changed, toi iho has to be able to interface internationally, toi iho needs to be in a space where we have to be commercially viable and work with those who currently carry the cultural collateral to help provide that dimension to NZ Inc.”

While details of the Government led NZ Inc initiative are not yet clear,  in addressing the Wellington launch of the Maori  contribution to NZ Inc, Dr Sharples said “overseas markets, and international visitors to New Zealand, are increasingly receptive to the cultural distinctiveness inherent in indigenous products and services. Maori goods and services are unique. Not just in the design or the materials, but in the way we do business. We are in a new era of business and people today want to know the story behind their product – they want to know its whakapapa (heritage).”

For fellow TIKI board member and accomplished artist/designer, Carin Wilson, Dr Sharple’s statements were much appreciated, claiming recognition of the Maori  art form in New Zealand has never been adequate. “Arts funding in New  Zealand has been unfairly apportioned to individuals outside the Maori art form, toi iho should have equality in this area because toi iho is a vital vehicle for the indigenous art form both here and internationally,” says Wilson.

Professor Sandy Adsett and musician and singer Moana Maniapoto who have vast experiences in international and indigenous activities and are also TIKI Board members and concur they see great possibilities for toi iho artists in world forums.  

But identifying the upper echelon of Maori artists who will have to prove their whakapapa (heritage) to qualify their authenticity and high quality of work to use the toi iho trademark, will largely be the responsibility TIKI ‘s assessment panel, led by Professor Robert Jahnke. He says there will be strict guidelines around the qualifying criteria for artworks but the scope of application was relatively broad and would encompass visual, performance, music, drama and literary arts.

TIKI Trustee and Chair, Elizabeth Ellis says the progress made since negotiating the management of toi iho with Creative NZ in 2010 has been steady and significant considering the circumstances. “Members of the TIKI Board are working voluntarily with little budget but Its great to have our website up so people now have a reference point and an idea of who we are, and what we’ve been doing. I am as committed to toi iho as I was when we began developing the concept in 1995, toi iho remains a brilliant and unique initiative for Maori.  It has mana of its own and fits  the cultural model referred to by Hon Dr Pita Sharples,” said Ellis.

For further comment, please contact the following:
TIKI Trustee & Chair: Elizabeth Ellis – 021 624459 
TIKI Operations Manager: Ata Te Kanawa 027 5543382
TIKI Board Member: Carin Wilson: 022 3615753

Te Kahui Maunga •  Hei Tiki (corian)

Rangi Kipa is an Artist whose sculpture, carvings and tā moko are at the forefront of contemporary Māori art that challenges boundaries, creates dialogue, traverses the art/object divide and confronts the modern world that we live in as Māori and non-Māori.

Ngā̃ti Tuwharetoa, Ngā̃ti Uenuku • Mana Whenua I & II (clay)

Paerau graduated with a Diploma in Craft Design-Māori in 1990 from Waiariki Polytechnic in Rotorua.

She currently tutors in ceramics at Te Puna Toi, a Māori visual arts program of Te Wananga o Aotearoa in Palmerston North. She is a member of Ngā Kaihanga Uku, a national Māori clayworkers’ group; Kauwae, a Māori female artists’ group, and Nga Wahine Kai Whakairo, a national Māori women’s carving group.

Paerau’s work portrays Māori women as strong, enduring and as diverse as the carved female forms within the whare whakairo (carved house). She uses hand-building techniques to create her figurative forms and includes woven muka (flax fibres) and raranga (weaving) in her vessel forms.

Her work has been exhibited in Home Made Home(1991) at the City Gallery Wellington, Kurawaka (1994) at the Dowse Art Museum, and Treasures of the Underworld at the Expo 92 exhibition in Seville, Spain. Other exhibitions include Sisters/Yakkananna/Kahui Mareikura (2002) in Adelaide, Australia, and Kiwa-Pacific Connections (2003) in Vancouver, Canada