Hiria Anderson (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Rereahu) surveys her immediate surroundings and those individuals and relationships within her community of Ōtorohanga. The artist captures in detail the intimacy, incongruity, and poeticism of the everyday and with it the interplay between Tikanga Māori and contemporary municipal life. While her works regularly convey activity, they are equally occupied by a sense of absence; painstakingly depicting figures from obscure viewpoints, vacant spaces, or the minutiae of discarded objects.
Several works in this exhibition acknowledge the context and daily realities of Covid-19, with Anderson depicting members of her whānau wearing medical masks and watching televised government press conferences within the close interiors of hotel rooms.
Anderson works from her studio on Tūrongo Street where her grandparents lived and raised their children and granddaughter. Her grandparents were creatives in the traditional forms of Mahi Raranga and Whakairo. They were highly influential in Anderson's early years as she was witness to their prolific art practice. Anderson's grandparents were involved in Ngā Puna Waihanga - a Māori Arts Movement established in the 1980’s - that Anderson joined in the 1990s.
These early immersions in art led Anderson to enroll in Te Kura Toi - Visual Arts, tutored by James Ormsby and Eugene Kara, where she studied painting, drawing, sculpture, and art history.
We invited writer Matariki Williams (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Hauiti, Taranaki) to write a personal response to this exhibition. Read it here.
