B.

From her studio window in the port town of Ōhinehou / Lyttelton, Lonnie Hutchinson could see the volcanic range commonly known as the Seven Sisters running along the back of Ōhinetahi / Governors Bay. A pivotal work in the artist’s career, Sista7 celebrates this evening vista and the sense of belonging she felt nestled in the rohe (territory) of Ngāti Wheke, the hapū (subtribe) based at nearby Rāpaki. The spiritual and cultural values of Hutchinson’s dual Samoan and Ngāi Tahu heritage are firmly embedded in her practice. Hand-cut in black builder’s paper, positive and negative elements recall the fundamentals of Polynesian and Māori design. The rhythm of folds and the elegant shadows cast by the motifs inspire a natural sense of wonder.

(Te Wheke, 2020)

Haymaker suggests the act of making at the right moment in time. It’s also a boxing term for a powerful punch. In this massive, psychedelic, sci-fi-like painting, Shane Cotton has gathered together signs, symbols and references with elements from past paintings and unloaded them into the ether of te pito o te ao, the centre of the Māori universe. Time, power, Māori culture and tradition, semiotics and art history all play out across these five panels.The carved wooden figure shown in the first panel is Arnold Manaaki Wilson’s 1956 'He Tangata, He Tangata', Cotton’s homage to this pioneering Māori artist he respected greatly. The final panel of the work is titled Staging Post, and suggests a moment for taking account and preparing to set forth again. Here Cotton acknowledges two contemporary Māori artists, both of whom feature in Te Wheke – Peter Robinson (the chain) and Michael Parekowhai (the doe).

(Te Wheke, 2020)

“The sky is second only to the sea as a mass that fills my imagination with awe.” —John Pule

John Pule was born in Niue and at a young age moved with his parents to Tāmakimakaurau / Auckland. He returned to his home country as an artist, poet and writer in 1991. Inventive in his adaptation of traditional art forms, Pule’s work considers Pacific and migrant cultures, often provocatively. In this work, the blue clouds may also be islands. He says:Blue is associated with travel, knowledge, family and scenes from the Bible, but mostly the blue is the Pacific. The Pacific collects and shares all that we know about ourselves. In that period of cloud paintings I incorporated Niue creation stories, islands, the ocean (especially crossing the Pacific going to Niue or from elsewhere to Aotearoa).

(Te Wheke, 2020)