Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Well my very first memory in this life
is sitting on the floor with a crayon and a bit of paper
when I was about three.
I always drew and painted at home
and I made my first oil painting when I was thirteen in my bedroom.
My parents weren't very well off but they used to give me art materials every Christmas.
so that's the way I started.
I've always been an artist I think.
I grew up in Australia
so Wahine Toa work was
like an introduction for me into the
whakapapa (genealogy) that I always knew I had
but I didn't know what it meant.
I guess through my art and through making contact with people on the coast
and becoming strong in my Māori identity, because that was always lacking in me I know,
this is what has made my life
but it has always been in conjunction with my artwork.
At first it was my own identity and my own whakapapa Māori
then as my knowledge and understanding developed
about the politics of Te Tiriti o Waitangi
and our social histories
so then the themes become more prominent in my work.
So when I made that painting I was thinking about the fact that
we do know our whakapapa, and that's something we will always know
because that's something that won't ever be lost
but because we don't have our land anymore
it's also a great sadness and great part of our selves that's missing.
So our identity will be a different one
than it was, unless we ever get our land back.
'War' is from Hone Harawira's comment about
the fact that we are in a war for the future of our children
and that's what prompted me to do that painting.
When he made the speech then I thought, well, I'm going to do an artwork which I can contribute
to the 'Kai for Kids' fund that I've set up on Facebook
and what's the best way I can express what he has said?
and I thought, oh well, it must be a painting about war
and never having done a painting about war before, I thought
the first one that came to mind was Picasso's 'Guernica'
which to me is one of the most wonderful paintings that's been made.
I got the inspiration for 'Power to Define' from
an article written by Moana Jackson
and he was talking about the fact that the government has the power to define us
and what that entails
and I thought to myself, well...
all the things about the Treaty and all those sort of
political things, our loss of land and all that and our own history
before we were colonised as well
all those things come in when we actually defined ourselves.
And we still can but it's a lot harder now
and unfortunately colonisation has made it
impossible for some people to define themselves.
Once I was introduced to tikanga Māori (Māori custom), well then that's what it's always been.
I grew up in Australia and to me, I mean it was just this huge revelation
and I thought to myself, I can't paint...
...all these fuzzy warm things about being Māori, I have to paint the reality.
I mean, that's what it is.
The reality of Māori life today
has got to be put by me on canvas, because otherwise
I have to think about it myself, that's how I can deal with it.
And since then a lot of my paintings have been as a result of
current events that have been happening
'cause I've just been inspired to do the mahi (work)
at the time of something political, or whatever's going on.
But also I still have kept the warm fuzzy side, and the celebratory side,
that's my, probably two strands, of what I do
but you can't separate one from the other
I can't see how you could just do the happy side, really.