Matekino Lawless and Christina Hurihia Wirihana
' ... but this art is far more than just beautiful ... the art works are not simply art disconnected from the rest of life. They exist because the people who created them live in a relationship with their environment and their art comes directly out of that relationship.' – Mick Dodson from the Carried Lightly catalogue
Maori have always been rightfully indignant at the suggestion that their culture has no written language. The traditional mnemonic arts are language and within them recorded history, mythology and commentary are found. As the centre of Maori tribal life, the wharenui (meeting house) represents the body of an illustrious ancestor and is animated with the spirits of past, present and future. The wharenui embodies whakapapa (genealogy/history) and cosmology, given form by an internal structure of weaving, carving and painting.
In the catalogue essay for Kahurangi Toi Te Rito Maihi paraphrases the words of the artists who explain that, 'As the words of a writer, who weaves a story from words, a weaver weaves blades of harakeke so they join with others to form an intricate pattern, a story, a work of art. Words and harakeke alike depict the emotional state of the artist's mind. .... They restore or renew the desired harmony of the work in hand. They allow a freedom of expression no longer easily found'. While the work of Matekino Lawless and Christina Hurihia Wirihana is often made for collections and exhibited in galleries throughout the world, among their many combined achievements is the interior of 'lhenga', the great meeting house at Waiariki Polytech at Rotorua, which opened in 1996.
The role of the artist in Maori society does not simply