Nga Karetao by Charlotte Graham at Oedipus Rex Gallery

Charlotte Graham's show at Oedipus Rex Gallery features a mixture of carvings and paintings. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

When a gallery is accused of political correctness for turning down a show, it is going to be scrutinised for what it does have on its walls.

The works by Charlotte Graham on the wall at Oedipus Rex Gallery are political and correct, but not necessarily politically correct - or rather, the term is as meaningless in this context as it usually turns out to be.

Gallery director Jennifer Buckley says she rejected Warkworth artist Lyn Bergquist's works (representations of early Maori flags) because they were bad art, not because of issues of appropriation of Maori imagery.

But if Bergquist wants to be schooled in how cultural symbols can be incorporated into artworks, he may want to visit the gallery again.

The main room is set out like a meeting house - seven carved wooden figures interspersed with paintings based on woven tukutuku panels.

But the carvings are not poupou (columns). They are puppets, or karetao, representing the MPs holding each of the seven Maori seats in the last Parliament.

While the pieces were carved by Whare Thompson, Te Ratahi Ratahi, Matene Sisnett and Darrin Pivac, they are Graham's work in line with contemporary art practice - she commissioned them, specifying the tribal characteristics of each seat as design elements which needed to be included.

So Mahara Okeroa sports a large piece of pounamu, always associated with the South Island which makes up the bulk of his Te Tai Tonga electorate.

John Tamihere has the tilted head characteristic of carvings from Tamaki Makaurau and points north, as well as one arm carved in honey-gold kauri - a golden handshake.

"I'm not a carver. To honour the work, I needed to find people who could do the best job," says Graham, from Ngati Mahuta and Ngai Tai.

Another expression of honour was the waiata written and performed by Maori instrument player James Webster for the opening.

There was considerable discussion with Buckley over whether food and drink could be consumed around the works during the opening. The solution was to draw an aukati line around the floor, dividing tapu from noa.

Some of the karetao carry two sets of strings, metal linking them back to their parties and wider democratic system, and flax signifying the link back to their Maori constituents.

"Nga karetao had a traditional use for healing. I see the Maori seats, the MPs, as there to serve the people, to get across legislation and policies to empower people and to heal them," Graham says.

Between the karetao are paintings drawing on classic tukutuku forms like the ascending steps of poutama, which stand for advancement and education, or purapura whetu, the stars in the sky.

They carry their own symbolic language which the artist does not need to explain, but which allows her considerable aesthetic freedom.

The paintings are framed in large, shiny, stainless steel sheets.

"The link is, they are about collective viewpoints in a Maori cultural framework. The stainless steel draws people in.

"You not only see the artwork, you see yourself reflected, and looking through that mirror you get different angles, you see different viewpoints, and at the same time everything in the room is drawn in."

In the gallery's back room are larger canvases. Vertical lines reference tumatakahuki, a procedure which binds the horizontal tukutuku rods in place - an analogy for the kind of frameworks required to maintain the Maori collective.

Graham works by building, scraping and staining layers of wax on paper or canvas. Once she has built up a surface, she may return to it with dabs of red sealing wax.

"Maori used red sealing wax in the eyes of carvings, using it as adhesive for the paua. I see it as eyes of our people, the vision of our people."

It's fitting the show has some controversy associated with it. As they say in puppetry circles, there's no show without Punch.

EXHIBITION

What: Nga Karetao by Charlotte Graham

Where: Oedipus Rex Gallery, Khartoum Place, to Dec 3