Tongan sculptor Filipe Tohi moved to Aotearoa in 1978 and is known for distinctive public works and exhibitions across Aotearoa New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region. He is a specialist in the traditional Tongan cultural practice of lalava, a form of binding or lashing using coconut sennit, that he often translates to contemporary materials such as metal. This work, Makato'a, is from the Karen Stevenson collection recently given to the Gallery. It is a reminder of the close relationship between the artist and art historian, developed through the many interviews Stevenson undertook when writing a book on his work in 2015: Filipe Tohi: Journey to the Present: Makahoko Mei.

(Living Archives, 25 October 2025 – 8 March 2026)

To mark Lily Laita's death in 2023, this work was displayed with this label:

We acknowledge with sadness the death of Lily Laita – painter, art educator and valued member of the Aotearoa arts community. Laita was part of the first generation of Pacific artists to study fine arts in Aotearoa in the 1980s. She exhibited extensively here and internationally, and through her art and teaching inspired many younger Pacific artists and art educators. Laita’s paintings and prints are expressive, but also deliberately enigmatic, layered with loose outlines and shifting areas of colour that suggest private worlds and histories. She often included fragments of Samoan, Māori and English text, sometimes written in reverse. Laita became interested in the Samoan concept of vā as a creative state that existed beyond the picture plane, where she could draw upon elements from the world around her, but also enter a space of imagination and possibility. Once asked by an interviewer if she fit into a particular tradition, Laita replied: “Tradition is what you do today”.