connorgoldie604

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An example from my own practice

This is a digital illustration that I designed as a manifestation of the research that I have been doing. I used a repeating Mangōpare kowhaiwhai pattern in the background. This kowhaiwhai resembles the hammerhead shark, which symbolises strength, courage, and power. I chose a tūī as a subject for their historical identity as manu rangatira (chiefly bird).

This image explores the strength that can be found in natural taonga for establishing unity amongst Māori and Pākehā. Māori and Pākehā might have their differences, but we occupy the same land. Through our shared connection with natural taonga, we can establish kaitiakitanga and harmony between cultures.

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Ernest Mervyn Taylor

Ernest Mervyn Taylor was an engraver and woodblock artist. Many of his 200 woodblock prints portrayed New Zealand’s scenery and animals, but the majority showed images from Māori culture and mythology.

Taylor was involved in the New Zealand nationalist art movement, which aimed to portray the unique characteristics of the environment and culture of the country. He translated Māori subjects for a larger New Zealand audience than was before known. He did this through his meticulous study of Māori culture and desire in promoting it as a component of New Zealand identity. 

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Theo Schoon

Theo Schoon is a Pākehā artist who spent his career studying Māori art in depth. He was involved in projects such as documenting rock paintings. Scholars believe Schoon’s appropriation of Māori art to be one of the best since he did extensive study, learned how to carve from Pine Taiapa, a legendary Māori artist, and used traditional idioms in his image making.

Schoon’s work shows the contextual importance of studying Māori art and culture when carrying out illustration and image making methodologies for the purpose of exploring the relationship between Māori and Pākehā.  

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Dick Frizzell

Dick Frizzell is a Pākehā pop art artist. His works often explores the Māori Tiki. His work has sparked a lot of controversy, and he has been accused of cultural appropriation on countless occasions. His goal with a lot of his art is to recreate the kitschy Māori art that he saw in his youth. He isn’t trying to be serious, assert Pākehā as the dominant culture, or perpetuate the affects of colonisation. However, I don’t want to replicate his art, nor his approach. I see the value in his work from a Pākehā point of view. My first reaction is to enjoy it, because it feels familiar, and ‘kiwi’. But I recognise the fact that while it may have had positive effects, my goal isn’t to stir the pot. My goal is to establish a sense of unity amongst Māori and Pākehā, without taking away the mana of Māori tradition.

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Sydney Parkinson

Sydney Parkinson was a botanical artist, who travelled with captain cook aboard the Endeavour making copper plate engravings to document their sightings. One of his works on Cook’s visit to New Zealand in 1769 was ‘The Head of a New Zealander’, a colour engraving with intent to document the native Māori they encountered.

This is one of the first instances of image making in Aotearoa’s Pākehā history. It shows that as long as Māori and Pākehā have coexisted, Pākehā have used image making techniques familiar to them to make sense of Māori culture. There has been little controversy to Parkinson’s engravings, as they exist to serve as literal historical documentations as opposed to artistic expressions.

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Rita Angus

Rita Angus is among the pioneers of the regionalist art movement in New Zealand.  "As a woman painter, I work to represent love of humanity and faith in mankind in a world, which is to me, richly variable and infinitely beautiful" she said in 1947 when she summarised her attitude towards painting.

I like the regionalist style as it captures the intersection between culture and landscape. I think acknowledging this intersection is important for conveying Aotearoa’s identity in image making, because though we are multicultural, and built off a bicultural nation, we all share the same land.

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Christopher Perkins

During the 1930s and 1950s, Christopher Perkins' Taranaki had significant influence on the development of the New Zealand regional style in painting. Perkins positioned a dairy factory in front of a stylised mountain, which he viewed as a sign of development. The style of the work was hard-edged, as was common at the period in both Britain and Canada.

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Marilynn Webb

Marilynn Lois Webb was a well-known New Zealand artist and educator who made significant contributions to Māori art. Printmaking and pastels were her two main mediums of expression, and she was well-known for both.

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Paratene Matchitt

New Zealand sculptor and painter Paratene Temokopuorongo Matchitt was well-known for fusing traditional Māori art styles with modernist ones. There are references to historical figures and movements such as Te Kooti, as well as events from New Zealand's past.

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Barry Ross Smith

“I like to create a rapport with the viewer by playing with our reminiscences. Creating icons from our shared Kiwi past, the beach, the bach, the farm but mostly the people. We can identify with these characters as family, friends or someone we know.” - Barry Ross Smith

As stated by New Zealand Fine Prints Ltd; “His work typically engages with the conception of myth and cultural identity, often exploring these avenues from a New Zealand male’s perspective.” 

His art is inspired by the relationship between individuals and their immediate environment, specifically our communion with the land & encompassing oceans. His work has been described as “hymns to rural New Zealand...tellingly observed and cleverly rendered” by NZ Herald Critic TJ Mcnamara.

I admire Barry because his work showcases natural taonga, which I find inspiring as I value nature and kaitiakitanga. I also find his use of surrealism and kiwiana themes interesting as it is something I want to experiment with in the future.

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Tony Ogle

“Screen-printing allows me to express my love of the New Zealand landscape and ocean environment with strong colours in a direct and graphic manner” - Ogle

Tony Ogle uses screenprinting to create landscapes that capture the identity of Aotearoa. Ogle’s prints are full of colour, vibrant and celebrates New Zealands coastal landscapes. His works are extremely technically complex and handmade, with only one edition ever produced. Tony strives to capture what he calls a “sense of place” in his art prints.

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C.F Goldie

My own ancestor, Charles Frederick Goldie, was a painter who depicted Māori chiefs and figures.

C. F. Goldie was born in Auckland in 1870 and studied from 1893 to 1897 at the Academie Julian in Paris where the renowned Academic painter, Bouguereau, had taught.

The descendants of the models in Goldie’s paintings often view the works as representations of their ancestor’s spirituality and mana.

Goldie’s goal was to preserve Māori. In late colonial society, the concept of the ‘passing’ or ‘dying’ of the ‘old time Maori’ was widely accepted, which Goldie feared. 

Goldie’s work is contextually important to my research because they exemplify how a Pākehā (like myself) can promote kaitiakitanga.

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Glenn Jones

Glenn Jones is a kiwiana artist who inspires me. I love his puns and the simple way he captures kiwi culture. 

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Johnson Witihera

https://www.johnsonwitehira.studio/

Johnson Witihera is known for his Whakarare typeface. I am inspired by Witihera and his kaupapa Māori design approach. He does a good job of using Māori motifs in a contemporary way that maintains the mana of the artform, and doesn’t strip the cultural value away. 

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Gordon Walters

“Rather than evenly blending (assimilating) two cultures into a grey togetherness each is distinguished by the presence of the other. What makes it lively and mutually enriching is each, alongside each other, backing off and providing the space for the other to flourish.” (Smythe, 2018)

Gordon Walters uses abstract modernism methods to produce his signature interpretations of Kowhaiwhai patterns. Although his work has sparked controversy, I am inspired by how he is able to explore biculturalism by applying his own Pākehā art background to a traditional Māori artform.

Perhaps this marrying of traditional artform with contemporary style provides a way forward as a bicultural society. The controversy of Walters’ work has arisen due to certain Māori feeling as though he is stripping the mana from the traditional artforms. I suppose as soon as a Pākehā attempts to honour Māori methods and traditions, one has to be extra careful in preserving it’s mana.

I personally think if used in the right contexts, this design style can be very effective in establishing inclusivity of both cultures. 

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Researching Methods

I explored traditional Māori image making methods as well as western methods. These are the resources I drew from.

http://ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1344008

https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/doi/full/10.1080/14759756.2018.1474000

https://librarysearch.aut.ac.nz/vufind/EdsRecord/vth,91840358

https://www.pantograph-punch.com/posts/five-pakeha-painters

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/nz-painting-history/beginnings

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/35458111.pdf

https://designassembly.org.nz/2018/11/30/riffing-off-walters-the-art-of-distinguishing-ourselves/

https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5t3/taylor-ernest-mervyn

https://teara.govt.nz/en/whakairo-maori-carving/page-2

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/THE-WHAKARARE-TYPEFACE-PROJECT-%3A-WHEN-VISUAL-DESIGN-Trapani/8fea49f9e6f7fb3e85f2036fadb8952ae96e8d62

https://constellations.byu.edu/disney-meets-maori/

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Researching Contexts

Through my research, I refined the contexts I wanted to discuss. I decided on biculturalism and kaitiakitanga, as they are instrumental for image making and illustration that describes New Zealand identity, and offers a way forward.

The following are some resources that I used to dive into these contexts:

https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/13729

https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/5213

https://www.researchbank.ac.nz/handle/10652/2926

https://eprints.usq.edu.au/643/

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21502552.2019.1646587?journalCode=rpad20

https://librarysearch.aut.ac.nz/vufind/EdsRecord/anh,22772335

https://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?EbscoContent=dGJyMNLe80Sep7I4zdnyOLCmsEmeqLFSs6e4TLeWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGotVG3q7ZJuePfgeyx9Yvf5ucA&T=P&P=AN&S=R&D=anh&K=22772335

https://designassembly.org.nz/2018/11/30/riffing-off-walters-the-art-of-distinguishing-ourselves/

https://www.researchbank.ac.nz/handle/10652/3368