FEATURED ARTIST in May:
Tracey Tawhiao.
www.houseoftaonga.com.
Tracey Tawhiao (Ngai te Rangi, Whakatohea, Tuwharetoa) was born in 1967. She is a multi-skilled contemporary artist who has studied and worked in a variety of fields. She is a writer, performance poet, filmmaker, qualified lawyer and practising artist. Her artworks convey the breadth of her experience and her position as a Maori woman in a European-dominated society. The book 'Taiawhio: Conversations with Contemporary Artists' includes a chapter on this artist and one of her artworks features on the cover of this publication.
Tawhiao employs pages of newspapers such as the New Zealand Herald and the New York Times and obscuring certain passages of their text using alternating blocks of boldly coloured oil pastel and single graphic symbols. The symbols she uses are sourced from Maori rock art and Creation myths. She has also created her own visual language comprising of fish motifs and other symbols that relate to her Matakana Island heritage. Her blanking out of news stories acts to 'rewrite' them from an alternative, Maori perspective.
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