Ko te Ngakau t h e h e a r t s e r i e s

I , I I & I I I

A l l w o r k s b y d r R a n g i h ī r o a Pā n o h o u n l e s s o t h e r w i s e i n d i c at e d a l l d i m e n s i o n s i n m m ( W b 4 H )

© 2 0 1 2 D r R a n g i h ī r o a Pā n o h o & P i h i r a u p r o d u c t i o n s L T D

Mark Adams, Th e Bleeding Heart of Christ inside Maungārongo Marae, Poroti, 1998 in upcoming PIHIRAU PRODUCTION publication ‘Te Hokinga Mai: Th e Returning’ NFS

home is

Whatitiri te maunga tu tönu, tü te Ao tü te Po!Ngä tini puna koropupü ake ana i tana waewae

Waipao te awa i rukuhia i inuhia öku mätua tüpunaMaungärongo te marae kei mihi ki te hunga ora

Hei tangi ki te hunga mateKo Henare Pänoho te tupuna taneKo Peata Pänoho te tupuna whaea

Ko Te Parawhau me Te Uriroroi ngä hapüKo Ngä Puhinui tönu te iwi

where the heart is

1. Te Ngakau I, 2009 oil on paper, 1500 x 750, $138 GST INCL. SOLD

1. Te Ngakau I, 2009, details

2. Te Ngakau I, #2, oil on canvas, 2009, 950 x 700 $368 GST INCL 2. Te Ngakau 1 #2, details with Maungakiekie, Tokatoka, Tangihua and Whatitiri, oil on canvas

3. Kukupa over City, 2012 paper collage, SOLD

3. Kukupa over City, 2012 paper collage, details

4. George Witana’s Norfolk Lights Up Te Kao, reworked 2012 French Conte, Siberian Charcoal, pastels and coloured inks $345 GST INCL

4. George Witana’s Norfolk Lights Up Te Kao, reworked 2012French Conte, pastels, Siberian charcoal, gouache and coloured inks on cotton rag paper

details: George Witana’s Norfolk

4. George Witana’s Norfolk Lights Up Te Kao #2, 2012 French Conte, pastels, Siberian charcoal, gouache and coloured inks on watercolour paper, 660 x 1110 $345 GST INCL

4. George Witana’s Norfolk Lights Up Te Kao #2, 2012, DETAILS

details: George Witana’s Norfolk

NEW SERIES

4. George Witana’s Norfolk Lights Up Te Kao #2, 2012, DETAILS French Conte, pastels, Siberian charcoal, gouache and coloured inks on paper

TE NGAKAU II

July 2012

5. Tuia i Runga, Tuia i Raro, Tuia i Waho, Tuia Roto, Te Ngakau II Series #1, 2012 coloured inks, acrylic, Siberian charcoal and watercolour on canvas, 505 x 405 x 75 $368 GST INCL

5. Tuia i Runga, #1, coloured inks, acrylic and watercolour on canvas, 2012 DETAILS

6. Tuia i Runga, Tuia i Raro, Tuia i Waho, Tuia i Roto, Te Ngakau II Series, # 2, 2012 coloured inks, acrylic, Siberian charcoal and watercolour on canvas, 400 x 300 $103.50 GST INCL

6. Tuia i Runga, Tuia i Raro, Tuia i Waho, Tuia i Roto, Te Ngakau II Series, #2, 2012 coloured inks, acrylic, Siberian charcoal and watercolour on canvas, 400 x 300 $103.50 GST INCL 7. The God Particle, The Great Rubber Duck, Two Worlds Collide, Te Ngakau II Series, #3, 2012

coloured inks, acrylic, and watercolour on canvas, 400 x 300 $86.25 GST INCL

8. Te Ngakau III Series, #1, 2012, watercolour and acrylic on canvas, 305 x 255 $86.25 GST INCL

TE NGAKAU III

July 2012

Te Ngakau III Series, watercolour and acrylic on canvas, 2012

9. Te Ngakau III Series, #2, 2012, watercolour and acrylic on canvas, 305 x 255 $86.25 GST INCL 10. Te Ngakau III Series, #3, 2012, watercolour and acrylic on canvas, 305 x 255 $86.25 GST INCL

11. Te Ngakau III Series, #4, 2012, watercolour and acrylic on canvas, 305 x 255 $86.25 GST INCL

5. Te Ngakau III Series, #1, 2012, detail

details: Te NGAKAU III

6. Te Ngakau III Series, #2, 2012, detail 6. Te Ngakau III Series, #2, 2012, detail

6. Te Ngakau III Series, #2, 2012, detail 7. Te Ngakau III Series, #3, 2012, detail

kaupapa: Te NGAKAU I, II & III

A note about this series

The heart is a common global motif used in commercial and fine art settings. If home is where the heart is then in Aotearoa it is not just where we live but where our ancestors lived and what they considered special and central to their community life. In my grandfathers Te Uriroroi house Maungārongo at Poroti (outside Whāngarei) there is an Italian etching of the bleeding heart of Christ. It is no accident that it is centrally positioned. It is ensconced by the images of tūpuna and Northern ancestral leaders that surround it. It brings back memories of the French Catholic Mis-sion under Antoine Marie Garin in the 1840s that the nineteenth century leader Te Tirarau (who can be seen in the Adams image) allowed to operate on the Upper Northern Wairoa along with James Buller’s Weslyan mission that he granted land to in Tangiteroria as well.

In other images like George Witana’s Norfolk lights up Te Kao the choices of religion by ances-tors is part of the unique mix of denominations that make far Northern settlements. The whetu marama motif is a reference to the uniquely Māori Christian Ratana religion which along with Mi-hinare ‘Anglicanism’ brings people back to rites of passage and ritual that help provide a structure of belonging in these communities. While the Te Ngakau II series might be connected with the Northern Wairoa valley legacy the George Witana painting is specifically family oriented. It relates to a large Norfolk tree that stands on family land and was heavily decorated with lighting around Christmas 2000. It had an unusually grand appearance in complete darkness for those approaching the Te Kao settlement. At night it could be observed for miles around and was a gathering point

for the family at that time. I pay tribute to the powerful graphic tradition of ngatu ‘Tongan tapa making.’ It also references planets and features the Royal motif (i.e. the Norfolk pines that feature in the palace grounds at Nuku ‘alofa) frequently represented in ngatu tahina and the sacred black that is a central feature of ngatu ’uli.

Te Ngakau II, 2012 acknowledges the visceral nature of these connections with ancestors and ta-onga tuku iho (both the land but also the artforms that have been passed down to us). Whenua or ‘land’ also means placenta and there are references to organs, feeding, passage and the processing of the external world internally. The heart is a muscular organ that pumps blood around the body. There are a number of references in both series to Māori and Polynesian artforms that are also at the heart of our Pacific cultures. As with spirituality they help keep alive the areas of human behaviour and belonging that main-tain a healthy sense of identity and being amongst ngā tāngata whenua ‘the people of the land.’

Te Ngakau I, 2009 grew out of my involvement as a thesis student with the Māori artist Paratene Matchitt and watching his work process. Like his mentor the Ngāti Porou carver and historian Pine Taiapa he was fascinated and inspired by pattern particularly that found in the more abstract artforms of raranga ‘plaiting found in mat and kit making technologies’ and tukutuku ‘latticework’ within the meetinghouse.

I remember a particular series Matchitt created involving a heart composed of woven strands of paper. I liked the metaphor (te tau o te ate ‘the string of the heart’) and used it in my own work with oil on paper. Te Ngakau II, 2012 is based on the well known lines used in mihi ‘formal greetings’. Tuia i runga, tuia i raro, tuia i waho, tuia i roto means ‘Bind that which is above, bind that which is below, bind that which is outside, bind that which is within.’ This concept has been used in relation to the Māori preference, and wider South Pacific need, to bind, envelop, wrap (both physically and ritually) using fibre and cloth. This is referenced in the raincloak - the golden underlay kaupapa form for the composition. Further, it can be seen in the colourful ‘tags’ used in the painting. These allude to nineteenth century hukahuka ‘tassles’ that once decorated korowai ‘woven cloaks with hukahuka’. Here strips of coloured silk held with gol-

dare suggested. They surround the heart motif. It is a metaphor big enough to encompass two quite differently positioned worlds. There is the macrocosmic and external world of the physical universe. On the other hand there is the more modest scale of the internal world of the human heart. The comparably minute heart might be said though to contain its own universe of emotions. Such a world is in its own terms as big and as complex as that found in the night sky with its purapura whetu ‘myriads of stars’ scattered across the cosmos. Penei whakaaro.

arohanui ki a koutou nā Rangi