TUKU: Open Studio | Emerging Māori Artists

Come to Puke Ariki, New Plymouth, from 18 May and watch fresh treasures being created before your eyes. Early-career artists Dwayne Duthie and Jodie Tipa will be at work in an open studio, adorning manaia (guardian figures) under the direction of senior artist and designer WharehokaSmith.

Talk with the artists as they work on this unique collaborative project, which is preparing the space for the arrival of 40 tūpuna (ancestor) portraits from around Aotearoa as part of the Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award, opening at Puke Ariki on 25 July.

Designed by WharehokaSmith, the manaia acknowledge the mana carried by the incoming portraits. Once completed, the eight manaia will remain in place and form part of the portraiture exhibition.

See the manaia come into being for yourself, as each artist extends their visual arts practice through this customary form.

About the artists
WharehokaSmith (Te Ātiawa, Taranaki, Ngāruahine, Pākehā) is a senior Taranaki artist whose large-scale works draw on customary forms and imagery to express perspectives grounded in te ao Māori.
Wharehoka has previously exhibited work at both Puke Ariki and Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.

Jodie Tipa (Kāi Tahu ki Moeraki) brings new focus to enduring patterns laden with ancestral significance in her large installation artworks. She explores whakapapa (genealogy) and identity through abstract designs expressed in woven forms such as raranga and tukutuku panels. In TUKU: Open Studio, she envisages the newly created manaia guiding, protecting and affirming active connections between past and present.

Dwayne Duthie (Taranaki, Te Ātiawa, Pākehā) is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, sculpture and video. Figures in his work gaze directly at the viewer, provoking reflection on the human condition, innocence, identity, power and control. As part of TUKU: Open Studio, he will explore Māori cultural concepts and their relationship to his practice and its future direction.