LONNIE HUTCHINSON

WI TAEPA

MICHEL TUFFERY

24 April - 18 May 2007

Tahi Rua E Tolu acknowledges the cultural origins and their continuum in the life and work of Lonnie Hutchinson, Wi Taepa and Michel Tuffery, three leading New Zealand artists whose work is informed not only by their living cultural identities and heritages but by the new meanings to be found in a world that is continuously morphing and merging.

Lonnie Hutchinson (Ngai Tahu / Samoan) is a multi-media, visual, installation and performance artist who exhibits both nationally and internationally. With an artistic practice and visual language of such richness and breadth it is her works made from black builders’ paper that have become the most recognisable strand of her oeuvre. Projecting outwards into three dimensional space these ‘cut outs’ manage to embody both a sense of ephemeral delicacy and the strength and stability of a mountain range; a living dichotomy that speaks with grace to the dualisms of then and now, black and white, ancestors and friends and whanau of today.

Using a symbolic language of shapes, patterns and motifs drawn from both Maori and Samoan cultural forms; the traditional arts of Pacific women such as siapo (tapa), tivaevae (patchwork) and weaving, and contemporary pop cultural forms like hip hop, Hutchinson’s ‘cut outs’ narrate stories and issues of gender and cultural identity. Up North and East (both 2006) included in this exhibition are fine examples of the highly labour intensive process involved and resemble items of female attire such as capes, skirts or veils, all of which evoke states of protection, concealment and refuge.

Hovering against a brilliant white sky, the idea behind Hutchinson’s bird installation originated with an investigation into the traditional activities of pigeon snaring by chiefs in Samoa, but has expanded over time to be interpreted freely by the viewer through their own eyes.

Her work is held in major private and public collections including the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu.

Wi Taepa (Ngati Pikiao, Te Arawa, Te Atiawa) originally trained as a traditional wood carver but diverted the majority of his energy to working with clay, a medium which he found offered a greater sense of freedom. The ceramic vessels and sculptural forms he creates are inspired by and honour whakapapa (genealogy, the ancestors). These works are generally hand-built using a variety of construction techniques ranging from coiling and pinching to slab construction, with patterning created by carving, incising, burnishing or painting. Generally the vessels are unglazed, then fired using a variety of low-tech sources including wood, sawdust, twigs, bark and gas, so as to retain a close connection with the earth, Papatuanuku.

As part of his commitment to the ceramic medium, Taepa has investigated early Lapita pottery, shards of which have been found in archaeological sites across the Pacific, and has participated in art residencies carrying out research on the construction and firing techniques used by the Hopi and Navajo Indians from Arizona, Pueblo of New Mexico, and by practitioners in Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Taking many forms, the vessels Taepa creates have drawn inspiration from waka or the canoe, and Taepa’s works Whenua 3 and Whenua 4 (both 2007) derive their shape from the taurapa or end piece of the waka, making metaphorical reference to journeying, travelling, and narratives of migration and settlement. The importance of whenua (land) and community and connections between them is rendered in complex patterning that symbolically represents a bird’s eye view of clouds, land and cityscapes that surround us.

Taepa is represented nationally in institutions such as Te Papa Tongarewa and in overseas locations as diverse as the United States, Canada and Zimbabwe.

Michel Tuffery (Samoan, Rarotongan, Tahitian) has won national and international art awards, public commissions and residencies for his work ranging across many disciplines from painting and printmaking to sculpture, installation, performance and digital technologies. His work explores ideas and stereotypes of the Pacific, colonisation and the ongoing effects of globalisation, all expressed with a mingling of the serious alongside the humorous. The body of work exhibited in Tahi Rua E Tolu is intended by Tuffery to act as a form of social commentary on encounters between Pacific Island peoples and Europeans around the time of exploration and colonisation by the British in the 1800’s. Anne Salmond’s book The Trial of the Cannibal Dog (2003) and E. H McCormick’s OMAI Pacific envoy (1977) functioned as key texts for Tuffery in his research into these early encounters, and the stereotypical constructions of Pacific peoples as either ‘noble’ or ‘savage’, or both. Tuffery’s take on these early encounters is that there is generally a comedic note that accompanies the dirge of the tragic and it is this coupled with his interest in trying to unravel the persona of Captain James Cook (aka ‘Cookie) that provides both the content and approach to these works. In an attempt to understand Cookie, he is presented in a number of locations he visited with markers of a Pacific identity, in particular the hibiscus flower. Other key characters include Kahura an ariki (chief) who was attributed with the death of Cookie’s navigator’s crew in Queen Charlotte Sound and Mai (known as Omai) who travelled to London becoming a celebrity before it was thought he should be returned.

Tuffery is represented internationally and in national collections such as Te Papa Tongarewa and the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki.

Lonnie Hutchinson
Up North, 2006
builders' paper
$1,200

Lonnie Hutchinson
East, 2006
builders' paper
$2,200

Lonnie Hutchinson
Volando, 2007
marine ply, dimensions variable
$3,500

Wi Taepa
Whenua 3, 2007
clay and oxide, 890 x 250 x 150 mm
$3,900

Wi Taepa
Whenua 4, 2007
clay and oxide, 890 x 250 x 150 mm
$3,900

Michel Tuffery
Fa tui harakeke, 2007
acrylic on tapa cloth, 420 x 915 mm
$6,000

Michel Tuffery
Tangaroa tui lua , 2007
acrylic on tapa cloth, 550 x 890mm
$6,000

Michel Tuffery
Cookie Huahine, 2007
acrylic on canvas, 255 x 255mm
$2,750

Michel Tuffery
Cookie in Rarotonga, 2007
acrylic on canvas, 255 x 255mm
$2,750

Michel Tuffery
Cookie in the South Pacific, 2007
acrylic on canvas, 255 x 255mm
$2,750

Michel Tuffery
Kahura in the Cookie va'a, 2007
acrylic on canvas, 255 x 255mm
$2,750

Michel Tuffery
Kahura, 2007
acrylic on canvas, 255 x 255mm
$2,750

Michel Tuffery
Mai , 2007
acrylic on canvas, 255 x 255mm
$2,750

Michel Tuffery
New Zealand man in Cook Strait , 2007
acrylic on canvas, 255 x 255mm
$2,750

Michel Tuffery
Tama Mau oriental hibiscus , 2007
acrylic on canvas, 255 x 255mm
$2,750