Ngataiharuru Taepa Is Carrying Kōwhaiwhai Into The Future

Most New Zealanders would have come across kōwhaiwhai — the lyrical patterns traditionally painted in whare tipuna (meeting houses), on the bow of waka and in many other carved objects. These Māori motifs are a way to tell a tale, and each has a specific meaning.

Palmerston North-based artist Ngataiharuru Taepa, 47 (Te Arawa, Te Āti Awa), has been exploring traditional kōwhaiwhai through modern art techniques, like computer-driven routers to create digitally carved panels, for the past 20 years, resulting in an exciting and engaging body of work, more recently, in some unusual colour palettes — think aqua, lemon, pink and mint.

Ngatai is also Kaihautu Toi Māori, the director of Māori arts at Massey University College of Creative Arts, and cites his upbringing in an artistic family as a key influence in his work — his grandmother was painter Mavis Newland and his father Wi Taepa, a carver and Māori clay worker.

Ngatai’s interest in Māori arts was fine-tuned at Te Aute College in Hawke’s Bay, where he observed the making of kōwhaiwhai panels. He completed his Bachelor of Māori Visual Arts in 2000, and his master’s in 2003 at Massey University, studying under well-known lecturers and artists such as Kura Te Waru Rewiri and Shane Cotton.

Tell us about the history of kōwhaiwhai and why it’s integral to your art-making.

Kōwhaiwhai is the name given to customary Māori painting and design practice, its whakapapa links us to our cosmological and genealogical stories of the earth, the sky and our ancestral origins. It’s also an expression of Mana Atua (spirituality or wellbeing) and Mana Tangata (mana of our people).

Kōwhaiwhai was the writing of our ancestors, that’s the way they described what they saw in the world. This artform pre-dates the written word in our culture.

My master’s study was to examine the impact that the written word had on our visual culture and on understanding kōwhaiwhai as a visual language.

What are a few of the stories behind the wooden panels that will appear at the Aotearoa Art Fair?

The works I have created give visual form to karakia (incantations and prayers used to invoke spiritual guidance and protection). I have selected a part of the karakia that describes the universe as a cosmic garden with infinite potential.

In nature, moments of balance, rhythm and complexity inspire me — in our culture we are considered a part of nature connected through genealogy. These works suggest that we are a part of a cosmic garden filled with infinite potential.

What traditional kōwhaiwhai motifs do you work with most often?

Kōwhaiwhai is predominantly made up of the combination of koru (fern frond), kape (a curved pattern like an eyebrow), rauru (spiral shape), ngu (a specific space found within the pattern) and the manawa (the rhythm of a pattern created through repetition and symmetry).

The palette of red, white and black is commonly used in kōwhaiwhai — what is the significance of these colours and does your palette of pastel tones have any particular meaning for you?

The palette of red, black and white in kōwhaiwhai is in fact a relatively modern one. The red refers to the kōkōwai (red ochre earth oxide), the black to the soot, and the white being the exposed timber or material the pattern was applied to.

The earth oxides were mixed with an oil (shark or whale) and used to create the pattern through painting with various brushes made of hair or flax fibre.

Customarily, kōwhaiwhai would have been expressed through the spectrum of kōkōwai (earth oxides) available to the practitioners and the intention of their application.

The meaning of colours vary depending on where you are and the orators of the time. Red, black and white have, for example, become powerful representations of the past, present and future.

The use of the pastel colours in my recent works are selected to recall an emotive response that is, hopefully, settling and calming. The combination and value of the colour is an attempt to present a harmonious experience as well as recall the energy associated with the dawn sky.

You come from a line of artists and your partner, painter Saffronn Te Ratana, is also a well-known artist. How do these relationships impact your artistic process?

Saffronn has for many years been my inspiration and has provided me with guidance and critique. Of late, I have been listening to how my sons respond to the colours I am using. They provide a completely different perspective — that is of another generation, the future.

Karakia (prayers used to invoke spiritual guidance) have been an inspiration in your work. Can you describe to our readers how karakia has inspired your practice?

I have been fortunate to descend from and be exposed to different kaikarakia (people who carry out karakia on behalf of the tribe). My attention to specific tikanga (Māori customary practices) is inherited and is at the forefront of what I do.

In my current practice, karakia and kōwhaiwhai have become inseparable and essential to one another. Both provide opportunities of maramatanga or understanding, and as an artist I have the privilege of sharing this practice with others.

You were a child of the 1970s. What lasting memories from your childhood continue to impact on your practice?

My grandmother, Mavis Newland, was a painter and only stopped due to failing eyesight. She was my earliest influence and I can see her teachings within all my work.

I was also a child of Upper Hutt when hip-hop, activism and Māori culture were taking off and creative expression was a vehicle towards having a voice, making a difference and creating change.

What challenges do you think Māori artists face at this time? And where do you see contemporary Māori art heading in the future?

Māori art and Māori artists have benefited from coming from a culture that understood the value of its visual culture and the way it is connected to the other parts of our culture.

If there is a challenge, it might be to retain that understanding, so it isn’t relegated to being just a nice thing to look at.