Māori visual artist Raukura Naani Waitai is submerged in water

“For the last two years I have been looking into the water diversions up the mountain – the water that’s taken from Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika, which is the Whangaehu catchment, and the Whanganui catchment,” Raukura Naani Waitai says.

The water is taken to make hydroelectric power.

“I considered what was happening there and I considered what our people said in their presentations to the Environment Court. I let that sit for a while and I produced my response to that… and that’s what those works are heading towards representing.”

During this Zoom interview, Naani’s real-life backdrop is of large acrylic paintings, not yet finished, leaning on her bedroom wall. She has a small art room outside, but it’s not big enough.

“In the meantime, I make do with our deck, and everything ends up in my bedroom so that I can really have a good look and see if I’m happy with it.”

One of her goals is to be a successful wahine Māori contemporary artist who makes beautiful works she can live off, comfortably, with enough to build herself an art studio in her hometown of Whanganui.

In November, her in-progress paintings will be part of a joint exhibition at Te Manawa Gallery in Palmerston North, where Naani is studying through Massey University’s College of Creative Arts, Toioho ki Āpiti.

This year, Naani received a grant from Te Āti Hau Trust to support her master’s degree. “It takes the pressure off… and helped with art resources. It’s so nice to know that our people have helped me on this journey.” Naani is an

Ātihau-Whanganui Incorporation shareholder through her mother.

Art flows through Naani’s whakapapa, mainly on her father’s side. Naani was born in Whanganui and spent her first few years at Rātana Pā. Then the whānau moved to Lower Hutt where her father, Rana Waitai, worked as a policeman, before becoming a lawyer and politician.

When she was a teenager, Naani returned to Whanganui and her ancestral roots. She and her husband Turama Hawira have eleven children and have almost lost count of the number of mokopuna.

From her mother, Te Aroha Anne Waitai, Naani’s iwi are Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi, Whanganui, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Wairiki and from her father she is Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne, Ngāti Ruapani, Tūhoe and Te Iwi Mōrehu, her connection to Rātana Pā.

From a young child, Naani always liked to create things but says there were also strong artistic influences. “My dad, one of his pastimes is to recreate the oil paintings of Goldie,” she says. “When I took art at high school, one of the first artist’s works I was exposed to was a first cousin to my father; his name is Brent Wong.”

He is a surrealist painter known for his big landscape works, often featuring cumulus clouds and ethereal shapes. “It was those big landscapes that he used that have influenced some of my work,” the 54-year-old says.

When Te Rangi Koroingo Waitai, Naani’s grandfather on her dad’s side, lived at Rātana Pā, he painted flags depicting the history of Te Māramatanga, subjects important to the Rātana movement.

“Those records, I call them flags, have quite a formal arrangement,” she says. “I can see that formal arrangement has influenced my direction, although now I’m trying to become more fluid, hence water. I can still see influences of Uncle Brent, because I start with a landscape, although the landscape here is a water landscape.”

She then creates a narrative within that pictorial environment.

Naani also carries a design of the past. At age 36, she chose to receive a moko kauae, reclaiming the design from her father’s great-grandmother, Nanny Keita Whakaipo, of Ngāti Ruapani/Tūhoe. “She was taken away from her homelands and she never went back, and so our family has not had a physical connection to her. That’s why I wanted her design on me as a walking, living memory of our Nanny Keita Whakaipo and our connection with Ruapani and Tūhoe.” >>

In July, Naani had a solo homecoming exhibition called Reporting Back 2022, which showcased 10 acrylic-on-board works from Year 4 of her Bachelor of Māori Visual Art and Year 1 of her Master’s in Māori Visual Arts. It was held at the Whanganui Community Arts Centre.

Naani’s works were based on Whanganui and Ngāti Rangi kaupapa. “Because they were formed by these iwi kaupapa, my intention was always to bring them home,” she says.

In some of the works, she has used “te one tapu” earth pigments mixed into a clear medium.

She gathered these pigments from the desert up by the base of Ruapehu, where the headwaters of the Whangaehu are diverted.

“As part of my practice I will visit those waterways, do karakia and do the appropriate tikanga in those areas.” That’s so the people and the elements know what she’s doing.

She paints with the pigments. “I use them as a base so that the mouri of the area is imbued into the works.” The pigments will also be used in the November show.

“For myself it was really about finding a way to communicate the way our people feel about the diversions for hydroelectricity. Huge amounts of water are continuously taken from the Wāhianoa aqueduct for the Tongariro power scheme,” she says.

“It’s like a taniwha that swallows the mouri of the water,” Naani says. “I have a huge interest in water and what our people have said. I let things percolate or sit within me until a response comes. My work this year has definitely been a response to what I’ve digested.”

Or been submerged in.