Emily Karaka: A Place to Stand
For over four decades, Emily Karaka has been a strong voice for Māori women in Aotearoa New Zealand art. Her activism in support of Māori customary and land rights under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi is every bit as forceful and assertive as her expressive use of colour and form.
Image credit: Emily Karaka Ahiwaru, 2020, mixed media on canvas, 183 x 122 cm. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with assistance from Creative New Zealand Photo: Alex Robinson. Courtesy the artist and the Biennale of Sydney
Central to any political or social discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand is the legacy of colonisation and Empire, and the often-fraught relationship between Māori and the British Crown established by the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. It’s a subject that underpins the paintings of Auckland-based artist Emily Karaka (Ngāpuhi: Ngāti Hine and Ngāti Kahu o Torongare; Waikato-Tainui: Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Te Kawerau ā Maki, Ngāti Tamaoho, Te Ākitai Waiohua, Ngāti Rori-Te Ahiwaru, Ngāti Mahuta and Ngāti Tahinga). Māori land rights and tino rangatiratanga (Māori sovereignty) have been central to her practice for over four decades.
Te Papa curator Megan Tamati-Quennell describes Karaka’s work as “passionate, expressive, gritty, challenging, simultaneously celebratory and confrontational.” Novelist Witi Ihimaera called her an “earth goddess.”
‘Whakapapa’ roughly translates as ‘genealogy.’ In practice, it locates Karaka in place and time in relation to her bloodlines and the landforms that are also her ancestors. Whakapapa manifests itself as a deeply personal and spiritual relationship with land and environment, especially Tāmaki Makaurau, the Auckland isthmus, as seen in Karaka’s powerful, high-key colourful paintings.
“Colour is a life force,” says Karaka. “I have always had an affinity for colour. One of my earliest works, In the Mixing Bowl (1977), was praised by Colin McCahon for its use of colour. It is currently on show at Te Tuhi in Pakuranga, where it was first exhibited in 1977.”
“I am known for my use of bright colour. Some recent paintings of mine, which show the Tūpuna Maunga o Tāmaki Makaurau (Ancestral Mountains of Auckland) in darkness under the Matariki (Pleiades) stars, are more subdued than people might ...Subscribe to read this article in full
