Tattooing more than skin deep

The artform that helped Gisborne's Derek Lardelli to win a 2004 Laureate Award is all about whakapapa (genealogy) and bloodlines, he says.

Lardelli, perhaps the country's best-known tohunga moko (ta moko expert), says Maori tattooing is "about blood".

"It is not about the individual, it is about who that person stands for. This is about the people I represent ... the tribal groups from Tairawhiti."

Lardelli is a principal tutor at Tairawhiti Polytechnic's School of Maori Art and Design, as well as a tohunga moko, visual artist, carver, kapa haka performer/tutor, composer, graphic designer and researcher of whakapapa, tribal history and kaikorero.

He has links to four tribes - Ngati Porou, Rongowhakaata, Ngati Kanohi (Ngai Te Riwai) and Ngati Kaipoho (Ngai Te Aweawe).

Lardelli was one of five recipients of the 2004 Laureate Awards presented by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. The others were film-maker Barry Barclay, composer Jack Body, visual artist/writer John Pule and glass sculptor Ann Robinson.

Each received $50,000 from the largest cash arts prize pool in New Zealand.

Lardelli, 42, told the foundation he saw the award as giving recognition to a beautiful artform that encompassed the genealogies, histories and lifeblood of his people. "I see my work as not being so much that of an individual but more the artistic expression of the work of our tipuna [ancestors] and our iwi [people]."

It was more than just an image etched on skin, he said.

"What informs it, what makes it exciting, is that genealogical pool from which it came."

The Gisborne region had always been strong in the arts, he said.

"The renaissance of our culture is very strong at the moment and that means Maori arts here and all around the country are flourishing."

This was especially evident in ta moko, with an explosion in the number of practitioners and quality of work in recent years.

Lardelli said both young and established artists in New Zealand needed support.

"The foundation can really make an impact on an artist's life by giving them the means to buy what they need the most - time."

- NZPA