Sculptor receives Hawaiian carving grant

Lyonel Grant says it's up to the young generation to keep the spirit of carving alive. Picture / Greg Bowker

Lyonel Grant looks around his Unitec workshop at the unfinished carvings and mounds of wood chips and says he really has no time for a break.

Then again, construction of the polytechnic's new meeting-house doesn't start until early next year, so a two-month residency at the University of Hawaii's Kamakakuokalani Centre for Hawaiian Studies may be fine after all.

"Te Waka Toi [the Maori wing of the Arts Council] wanted me to go for three months, but two was all I could spare."

As well as carving and lecturing on his work, Grant plans to use the inaugural Oahu residency to find to what extent native Hawaiian artists are affected by the glare of American culture and the romanticised views of Hawaiian culture sold back to the United States mainland.

Grant, from Ngati Pikiao, was trained in the classical tradition of Maori carving, his interest fostered by growing up at Okere Falls near Rotorua, where there are six meeting-houses within a 15km radius.

After graduating from the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Whakarewarewa in 1984, he carved the house Te Matapihi o te Rangi at Papa o Te Aroha Marae in Tokoroa for the Maori Catholic Society. He also carved the house Ihenga at Waiariki Polytechnic in Rotorua.

Grant says that although revivalists such as his teachers Pine and John Taiapa and Auckland-based Pakariki Harrison stopped the carving tradition dying out, it is up to younger generations to branch out.

"Stylistically we have those models to follow but we have to find what our style is now, sing our own song.

"If you start from a traditional base and you are strong enough to escape the gravity, you can get into orbit. But if you aren't tough enough, it will just drag you back every time. I don't think anyone has cracked it yet."

Te Noho Kotahitanga at Unitec will be the first house where Grant has complete control of the project, rather than embellishing a shell designed by an architect.

"The poupou [perpendiculars] will be bold and thick and bear weight. The heke [rafters] will be structural and go to the ground.

"In this house we are really trying to create new poupou you haven't seen in a book and attack new subject matter so it will drive the imagery in a new way."

Across the back wall will be a line of poupou depicting ancestors from principal hapu associated with Tamaki Makaurau since the arrival of the main waka.

The poutokomanawa will include the two chiefs with greatest influence over the area in 1840 - Apihai Te Kawau of Ngati Whatua and Potatau Te Wherowhero of Tainui. That sets a whaikorero (conversation) for the whole house.

In works for commissions and exhibitions, Grant has experimented with materials that include cast glass, bronze, marble and granite.

He says it's a way to escape the pull of tradition.

"The way to do it is to create works in various materials that are non-traditional, that force you into spaces you are uncomfortable with, that require you to be true to that material, that demand different approaches.

"You are pushed into an unfamiliar space and hopefully you have to dig deep to create something that is worthy and that will push you to works that are still overtly Maori but are different.

"I'm working on the ninja theory where you load yourself up so much you come out scrapping, and hopefully produce some good work."

Who: Sculptor Lyonel Grant
What: Recipient of the first Hawaiian carving residency, Te Waka Toi, Maori Arts Board of Creative New Zealand