5 Maori Painters

Overview

5 Maori Painters is a striking visual history of the Maori painting tradition told through five female voices. The exhibition provides an overview of the five contemporary artists' practices and an opportunity to better understand the relationships that make our country unique.

Emily Karaka's paintings are powerful, political and punchy. Her intensely coloured and textured paintings hit you with unexpected physical force, almost like a slap in the face. Robyn Kahukiwa's work may be easier to 'read' in a narrative sense, but no less loaded and even more moving.

Kura Te Waru Rewiri plays with pattern and abstraction while Star Gossage plays with dirt, literally. Her paintings of ghostly figures include earth, clay, lime and tar, which she uses to colour the landscape. Saffronn Te Ratana takes her paintings one step further, bringing them off the wall onto the floor and into 3 dimensional form.

Links to the past are drawn through slices of history; natural pigments, painted hoe (canoe paddles), heke (rafters) and work by 19th-century artist George French Angas, which complement the contemporary paintings and provide context for the artists' work.

5 Maori Painters is a celebration of women, culture, heritage and painting. Don't miss it.

Image: Kura Te Waru Rewiri, Front 2003, acrylic on canvas, 1050 x 1560 mm, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 2012.