Kereama Taepa's world of digital art.
Visitors to the Aotearoa Art Fair this weekend will find it hard to miss the work of multi-disciplinary and award winning artist Kereama Taepa.
Taepa’s distinct work serves as a exploration of his journey through te ao matihiko (the digital world) and its impact on Māori culture. His unique artworks feature tradition with innovation, merging customary Māori artforms with modern technology and modern references from pop culture like Pac Man.
Taepa (Te Arawa, Te Āti Awa) was the first digital artist commissioned for Parliament with the Poupou Matihiko (translates as Digital Poupou), that hangs in the select committee hallway.
Other works of his are held in the Tāmaki Paenga Hira collection at Auckland Museum and an NFT piece, Mai Te Vira was recently projected in New York’s Times Square. In New Plymouth a 2.5 metre tall pixelated tiki sculpture Tichi has prime position in Currie St, and other pieces of his art appear in Whakarewarewa Forest, Rotorua and Te Papa.
Taepa is already delivering an impressive and prolific body of work - designed to achieve his goal of bringing Māori art into public places.
“Growing up I identified as being Māori, but there was no physical evidence of anything Māori,” Tapea said.
“I am mindful of those who struggle with their identity and sense of belonging. I want to bring more Māori art into our public places and spaces so that we can see it, touch it even.”
His art is drawn from Māori visual language, integrated with pop culture icons. He uses new technologies like projection, 3D printing as well as augmented and virtual reality to tell stories of both past and present.
Whakapapa is central to the Pāpāmoa-based artist and he acknowledges his art skills run in the family - his nana was a painter and his dad a carver. He grew up in a very artistic family with a Pākehā mum and a Māori dad.
Growing up in an urban environment meant Taepa was influenced by popular culture as opposed to Māori, though he later sought out and studied Māori visual arts at university.
He likes his pieces to represent both of his cultures.
“My work has a lot to do with identity – how we form it, hide it and reveal it. Our carved traditions are full of narrative - and tells the story about the person that has been carved - it identifies who they are and where they are from - both anecdotally and visually,” he said.
“My own upbringing and cultural references including pop culture - is woven into my work. It is important to me that art, particularly Māori art and influence finds its way into public spaces. I looked for it when I was growing up.”
Art was always going to feature in his future.
“We were drawing and painting from an early age. On my mother’s side, grandma was a painter and my dad taught carving in prisons and was always creating. Art was always around us”
As a child, Taepa was always in the studio with his father, carving and working with wood and materials like clay. He got interested in the 3D side of things as he got older.
Taepa said his art reflects past generations but also looks strongly to the future and the broader continuum of Māori art.
“Our ancestors were innovators and inventors so I’m doing the same as them - just in different times with different stimuli. Tāne separated Ranginui and Papatūānuku to create space for all of their children.
“Our art practices all have origin stories - whakairo from Tangaroa through Ruatepupuke, moko from Rarohenga through Mataora. I have long pondered the whakapapa of our digital spaces - if we had one what would it be? If atua governed those spaces then who would they be?”
Taepa’s presence at the Aotearoa Art Fair is thanks to Toi Tauranga, which has commissioned Whakairoa - an art installation that spans the physical and virtual worlds. This AR experience is a small prelude, with the final, complete exhibition to open at Tauranga Art Gallery in early 2025 as part of the gallery’s reopening programme.
“I think as Māori, we need to keep exploring, just like our ancestors did”
Taepa will speak on Friday as part of a panel discussion on contemporary Māori Art (1.30pm).
Aotearoa Art Fair, Viaduct Events Centre, April 18-21.