Maori artists celebrate the pleasure of painting

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

WHEN some of the country’s busiest Maori artists this week converged on Whatatutu for a painting workshop, they may not have anticipated ending up knee-deep in water. But, as facilitator Tawera Tahuri points out, that is kind of the point.

“Our whole theme is water, what it means to us and the health of our waterways,” she says of this week’s Wananga Waituhi. So we have made a point out getting in the water and feeling its wairua.”

The artists have come from as far afield as Northland and Christchurch to take part in the event hosted at Tahuri’s home and, to celebrate, last night launched an exhibition of their works at the city-centre Tupara Gallery.

Then, in a week’s time, they plan to do a grand switcheroo, swapping the paintings over for new ones they created during the course of the workshop.

In both its forms, the exhibition has been titled Ko Wai Au (Who Am I), a reference to artists presenting works that reveal their inner selves, their character and their identity.

The phrase ‘Ko Wai Au’ can also mean ‘I Am Water’, which speaks of making connections back to the land and sea, back to the beginnings of creation,” Tahuri says. “We feel that either definition makes for a potentially powerful artistic offering.”

All the artists see this week’s workshop as the start of something lasting, she adds.

“There are always all sorts of wananga going on in media from printing to carving, so we thought it was high time to give the same attention to painting,” she says. “Our intention is to make the wananga an annual event, and to work towards an exhibition to be held in New York in two years’ time.”

The impetus was the acceptance of six of their number into the Toi Maori initiative, which promotes Maori art and artists around the world.

“As artists, we are often involved in international collaborations but we wanted to do something that reflected us as Maori painters,” Tahuri says.

“All of us have been painting for more than 20 years and felt it was time to honour that with a medium-specific initiative where we can get together and do what we do . . . paint.”

Gallery owner Nick Tupara says both Wananga Waituhi and Ko Wai Au illustrate Tahuri’s position as a “key instigator and innovator for the arts”.

“And this gathering of painters is yet another milestone on her way to ensuring that the arts within the Tairawhiti continue to grow.”

Ko Wai Au opened at Tupara Gallery last night.