Turumeke Harrington is recognised for creating engaging sculptural installations that speak to the artist’s own whakapapa, personal relationships, cultural anxieties, and everyday musings. Harrington has a sympathetic approach to colour and materials and a remarkable ability to distil complex ideas into striking visual forms, expertly playing with scale to create sculptures, paintings, and jewellery bursting with humour and provocation. The artist has spent the last year gathering whenua from across the motu to produce unique pigments for painting, exploring her own connection with the land while attempting to reconcile this with those ever-looming visual representations of the landscape within our social and art histories of Aotearoa.
A recent project SWAMPED for Wellington City Council Courtenay Place Lightboxes was a tongue in cheek response to the history of the whenua on which Courtenay Place now sits, referencing both the original swamplands that provided resources to residents of Te Aro Pā – and their subsequent inclusion in the New Zealand Company’s Port Nicholson deed of purchase – and the rising costs of contemporary life. Upcoming projects include her participation in the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Queensland and solo exhibition STUMPING GROUND opening at Te Uru Waitakare 8 December.
Turumeke Harrington (b. 1992 Otāutahi Christchurch, Kāi Tahu, Rangitāne) has an MFA from Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University, a BFA from Ilam School of Fine Arts, and a Bachelor Design Innovation from Victoria University of Wellington. Harrington has an impressive exhibition history that includes Aratoi Museum of Art and History, CoCA, The Dowse Art Museum, Christchurch Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Pātaka Art + Museum, Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, The Adam Art Gallery, Objectspace, RM Gallery, and The Physics Room. Harrington has been granted a number of public commissions and received scholarships, residencies, mentorship programmes, and awards.
