Category Archives: Maori Art

Hinemihi: Te Hokinga – The Return
Hamish Coney and Dr Keri-Anne Wikitera
with contributions by Jim Schuster, Lyonel Grant and photographs by Mark Adams

 

The journey of the carved house Hinemihi o Te Ao Tawhito (Hinemihi of the old world) is one defined by cataclysmic events and the unpredictability of elemental forces. Through eruptions, fires, wars and displacement she has endured. Today she is an honoured kuia, revered by her iwi in the United Kingdom and her original owners and creators, Tūhourangi, as well as the wider iwi of Te Arawa.

Hinemihi is also an artwork, a … Continue reading →

The Passing world, the passage of life

THE PASSING WORLD
THE PASSAGE OF LIFE: John Hovell and the Art of Kowhaiwhai
Damian Skinner


Winner Illustrated Non Fiction – NZ Post Book Award 2011

Kōwhaiwhai, argues John Hovell, is about process, a shorthand summary of the passage of life, and a space within the whare whakairo (decorated meeting house) for the Māori artist to express his wry and droll view of human nature. It is, for coastal Ngāti Porou, an expression of an intimate relationship with the coastal environment and its resources, a lexicon of patterns created in the nineteenth century from close observation of … Continue reading →