Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
New exhibition now open.
Living Archives
Archives that tell stories about artists and history in Aotearoa
Whāia te Taniwha
Māori artists consider the enduring relevance of taniwha in Aotearoa.
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Collection
May Gilbert Untitled
May Gilbert was a contemporary of fellow Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland artists Hilda Wiseman, Ida Eise and Lois White, and like them she was an early practitioner of the linocut in Aotearoa. May attended the Elam School of Art in Auckland and was an important member of the contemporary art collective known as the Rutland Group. She had an interest in depicting urban buildings around Auckland in her work, particularly old colonial houses, but in this linocut her attention has been drawn to an interior view, focusing on a pot plant at the bottom of the stairs. Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023
Collection
Stewart Maclennan Limehouse
Stewart Maclennan studied at the Dunedin School of Art during the 1920s, then moved to London in the 1930s. There he attended the Royal College of Art where he studied under some of the leading British printmakers of the time, including Eric Ravilious and Paul Nash. He excelled at the school and was awarded prizes for design and lithography. He was also skilled at wood-engraving; this work, Limehouse, shows the influence of his tutors. Stewart returned to Aotearoa in 1939 where he continued to work as a printmaker for the remainder of his career.
Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023
Collection
Kulimoe'anga Stone Maka Koekilukilua
Ngatu is the Tongan name for tapa cloth made from the inner bark of hiapo (the paper mulberry tree). Making ngatu takes time and hard work, from growing and looking after the plants to stripping the bark and beating it to form large pieces of cloth which are then decorated with natural dyes and pigments, often by groups of women. Ngatu tāʻuli (blackened tapa cloth) uses a black dye made from the smoke of tuitui (candlenuts) and is sacred. Usually reserved for Tongan royalty and aristocracy, it is used to display power and respect.
Ōtautahi Christchurch-based artist Kulimoeʻanga Stone Maka draws on this tradition within his work, innovating the forms to consider contemporary ideas with evolving designs, symbols and narratives. In pre-colonial times, ngatu was patterned mainly with geometric designs. After Europeans arrived in the nineteenth-century, artists began to use text and symbols, such as the coat of arms, Norfolk pine tree, eagle, dove and lion. Maka builds on this history, adapting aspects to tell his own stories of global relationships, migration and life.
Maka was thinking of the relationship between Europe and Tonga, and the connections between two forms of abstraction when he made this work. It is possible that early modernist artists in Europe could have seen examples of Pacific art and tapa. Were Rothko, Picasso and Mondrian inspired by Maka’s ancestors, rather than the other way around?
