RAKAU MATARAU - REWETI ARAPERE

30 May - 9 July 2014 | Rotary Foyer

To celebrate Matariki, Expressions Whirinaki presents Rākau Matarau – works by Reweti Arapere. Featuring bold markings on life size cardboard pou, these works are a contemporary approach to visual language. Arapere’s art practice represents Māori narratives in a contemporary light, blending customary Māori art forms with graffiti style influence, representing young Māori who identify with both Māori and metropolitan culture.

This exhibition of works on paper navigate beyond the planes of the paper they fill, the line that bleeds from my permanent marker walks through time and space; adapting, reinvigorating and searching through the visual language left by our tūpuna (ancestors). Examples of this visual language can be seen adorning many marae across Aotearoa today. Exhibited during Matariki, Rākau Matarau activates a fresh understanding of a selection of pivotal Māori cosmological narratives and customary practices relevant to this time of the year. Matariki is a time of wānanga (contemplation) and maumahara (reflection). Arapere acknowledges this as a time of remembrance of those that have passed and the contribution they made to the lives of those left behind. “Ka hoki mahara kia rātou kua whetūrangitia.”

 

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