Kowhaiwhai: a moment between two eternities, Tim Melville Gallery, 9 February - 12 March 2022
HIRIA ANDERSON (Rereahu, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura)
NIGEL BORELL (Pirirakau, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Whakatōhea)
LISSY ROBINSON-COLE (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Kahu)
RUDI ROBINSON-COLE (Ngāti Paoa, Ngaruahine, Ngāti Makirangi, Ngāti Tu)
RUSS FLATT (Ngāti Kahungunu)
RA GOSSAGE (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāti Ruahine)
MAIA KREISLER (Te Ati Āwa Parihaka, Ngāti Mutunga) Courtesy of ‘Season’
TRACEY TAWHIAO (Ngāi Te Rangi, Te Whakatōhea, Tūwharetoa)
SAFFRONN TE RATANA (Ngāi Tūhoe)
KURA TE WARU REWIRI (Ngāti Pakahi ki Whangaroa, Ngāpuhi Nui Tonu, Ngāti Kauwhata ki Raukawa)
Maia Kreisler’s work explores material memory and cultural resonance through pit-fired ceramics that echo ancient artefacts—vessels that feel unearthed rather than made. Her Hue series evokes organic histories and invites contemplation of form, function, and inheritance.
One of the foundational motifs present in this exhibition is kōwhaiwhai—a Māori art form often described as abstract painting. With its swirling, spiralling patterns, kōwhaiwhai represents whakapapa (genealogy), and connects Māori to the natural world. First recorded on 18th-century hoe (waka paddles), kōwhaiwhai patterns later appeared on waka hulls and the heke (rafters) of wharenui (meeting houses), becoming deeply embedded in Māori visual language.
Through the ongoing legacies of colonisation and cultural assimilation in Aotearoa, kōwhaiwhai has been both appropriated and canonised, often becoming a shorthand for "New Zealand art." Yet, despite this fraught history, kōwhaiwhai remains a living, evolving, and powerful design tradition—one still deeply relevant in the 21st century.
This exhibition brings together Māori artists, including Kreisler, whose practices honour, interrogate, and expand upon this ancestral design language. Their works are not static references but dynamic expressions of identity, belonging, and creativity rooted in whakapapa.
For more information see here.