Oct. 25-Nov 20
Ro n g o m i a i a i a T e Whaiti
T e W h a r e Wa n a n g a : Th e H o u s e o f Learnign and Knowledge
Te Raounga - The Seeking 1500x1200mm
Te Pupuke - The swelling 1500x1200mm
Te Mahara - The Thought 1500x1200mm
Te Kukune - The Growth 1500x1200mm
Ro n g o m i a i a i a T e W h a i t i Te Whaiti, Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, Rangitane and Kai Tahu 1697, Lives and works in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Rongomaiaia Te Whaiti completed her undergraduate degree in Māori Visual Arts at Te Pūtahi a Toi (Massey University, Palmerston North) in 2011, and is currently in her final year there of a masters degree. She lives in Palmerston North with her husband and two young children. Rongomaiaia’s most recent paintings are self-portraits inspired by narratives from her home, the Wairarapa, and the Māori concept of ‘wānanga’, a process she says is “of storing, learning, and teaching tribal knowledges”. Her paintings carry a depth and richness to them; something she says is a consequence of “the ideas and thoughts that I am choosing to explore through the process of painting. I am investigating the potential in wānanga to preserve and activate narratives. The paintings are a visual manifestation of these thoughts and ideas. That is how my process begins. I then approach each canvas without any sort of ‘knowing’, but with a whole lot of ideas, statements, claims etc. As I paint, each dab informs where the next one is going to go. I’m always listening, looking and responding. The painting informs me as much as I inform the painting. When my mind reaches a state of clarity, I trust that the canvas has brought me there. That’s one way of deciding when I’m finished.” “On one level, Rongomaiaia’s paintings are realistic portraits of a seated woman looking directly out to the viewer, appearing to gesture, speak and signal to us. However, the loose brushstrokes and swirling tones seem to evoke another dimension, perhaps the rich heritage of whakapapa that surrounds her, and the network of interlinked, ever evolving korero that gives rise to words and ideas, inspiring her to communicate in the present and forward into future. As a sequence, the paintings attempt to do something quite new and ambitious: to document the evolution of an idea, a word.” Anne Taylor (Wairarapa art journalist and reviewer). “When we gather we talk, and the talking itself is a gathering… in momentum… then the thoughts like dust, eventually settle…”, says Rongomaiaia.