“This is one of the reasons I was interested in making them. I’ve also seen them in museums over the years and liked the idea of figuring out the mechanisms while adding my own versions.”
Riley’s karetao are an expanding series of figurative portraits. Sometimes fantastical, often satirical these portraits reflect the artist’s whakapapa connections and are a snapshot of the myriad roles she plays as a mother, daughter-in-law and artist of mixed race heritage.
“Throughout history artists have used the self-portrait as a tool to assert their abilities and even to conflate their likeness to a well-known figure, sometimes to immortalise themselves on canvas. By contrast my self-portraits are a bit self-effacing,” she says.
“As a wāhine Māori carver it felt great to be invited to exhibit at a wāhine Māori led gallery space. Hoea! is very much a community space which also appealed to me as well as the opportunity to bring the shows to Gisborne.”
Riley met Akemi Shimada while living in Japan when Akemi came to visit her kapa haka group during a wānanga in Tokyo.
“She told us her story of hiding her Ainu identity to avoid discrimination until an encounter with Māori gave her the confidence to be herself.”
Empowering for both artists
“She told us her story of hiding her Ainu identity to avoid discrimination, until an encounter with Māori gave her the confidence to be herself.”
Akemi Shimada was born in Shizunai, Hokkaido in 1956 and moved to the greater Tokyo area when she was 20 years old. Both her parents were indigenous Ainu but Shimada did not embrace her culture until many years later due to the fact the Ainu were thought of as a lesser people and discriminated against.
At age 47 she started to learn Ainu culture from scratch starting by making the clothes her ancestors had worn.
“I took up traditional Ainu embroidery and it has become the source of the greatest pleasure in my life,” Shimada says.
“When I am absorbed in Ainu embroidery I feel as if I am in communication with my ancestors and my mind stays peaceful.”
The embroidery is very labour intensive and is done as a collective communal practice which promotes interaction between Ainu people.
She makes garments with designs from Shizunai where she was born, but she also makes garments with designs from Sakhalin, an island off the southeastern coast of Russia where Ainu people once lived.
Her most challenging work to date was an Attus garment made from a cloth woven with tree bark fibres with Ainu designs embroidered on it.
This work was recently gifted to Te Papa Tongarewa in recognition of the support she has received from her Māori friends over the years.
She first connected with Māori in 2009 at a time when she was still a novice as an Ainu and says they have empowered her to embrace her culture and heritage.
“I hope through my artwork Māori will see that an Ainu in Japan being supported and encouraged by Māori people can practise Ainu with more confidence.”
Riley said Shimada had pushed her in many ways that have taken her out of her comfort zone, from public speaking in Japan to organising exhibitions in Aotearoa for her.
“In my last year in Japan, I’d started making artwork after a long hiatus and she invited me to exhibit with her and other Ainu artists in Tokyo.
“This was pivotal in building my confidence as an artist.”
