Fiji/Te Whiti by Dr Rangihiroa Panoho

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Dr Rangihiroa Panoho

Auckland, AUCKLAND

My visual practice grows out of my background as a Foundational Māori Curator & Māori Art Historian .

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$Fiji/Te Whiti by Dr Rangihiroa Panoho Image: Rangihīroa Panoho, Fiji\ Whiti 'The Crossover', acrylic and gold acrylic on board, 2014. Fiji examines the crossover from Fiji and asks the question, 'at what point did our tūpuna develop a consciousness of their identity as a Polynesian people? The painting features a male and female member of a crew inside a waka form.$

Rangihīroa Panoho, Fiji\ Whiti 'The Crossover', acrylic and gold acrylic on board, 2014. Fiji examines the crossover from Fiji and asks the question, 'at what point did our tūpuna develop a consciousness of their identity as a Polynesian people? The painting features a male and female member of a crew inside a waka form.

$Fiji/Te Whiti by Dr Rangihiroa Panoho Image: IOU, the book MAORI ART + the exhibition, Tivoli Art Gallery, Oneroa, Waiheke Island. 19 March – 19 April 2016. Artist's talk with friends of the gallery in front of Fiji\ Whiti 'The Crossover'$

$Fiji/Te Whiti by Dr Rangihiroa Panoho Image: Fiji\ Whiti 'The Crossover', acrylic and gold acrylic on board, 2014 alongside a portrait of Hekenukumai Busby, ĀTĀROA exhibition inside Whetū Mārama whare wānanga Kupe Waka Centre, 10 December 2022 - December 2024. Fiji examines the crossover from Fiji and asks the question, 'at what point did our tūpuna develop a consciousness of their identity as a Polynesian people? My uncle Hekenukumai Busby explored this question in his organising and sailing waka haorua across the Pacific ocean. Hekenukumai spoke frequently about Kupe and his retracing his steps back to Hawaiki 'our Polynesian homelands'. Another focus Hekenukumai repeatedly drew on was celestial navigation. The painting features a number of references to stars and birds that helped guide our ancestors to far flung islands aaround the South Pacific. These migrations also brought motifs from Island Asia and Lapita culture into distant Oceania. Some of these motifs, like the three fingered hand and the frigate are celebrated in this work.$

$Fiji/Te Whiti by Dr Rangihiroa Panoho Image: Fiji\TeWhiti 'The Crossover', acrylic and gold acrylic on board, 2014, detail$

$Fiji/Te Whiti by Dr Rangihiroa Panoho Image: Making Fiji \ Te Whiti, template drawing$

$Fiji/Te Whiti by Dr Rangihiroa Panoho Image: Making Fiji / Te Whiti masking out process. The process of laying patterns on a background grew out of working with vainetini and researching the leaders of Pacific Island quilt making groups (across Atoearoa) who were part of the curating and teaching I was doing in Whanganui and Pōneke in the late 1980s early 1990s. The exhibition Te Moemoea no Iotefa 'the Dream of Joseph' an exhibition of Pacific Island work I curated for Te Whare Rehua Sarjeant Whanganui, Toi Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery and City Gallery Wellington in 1990-1991 was the culmination of this research. This background connection with Pacific Island art legacies and identity is further explored in the most recent showing of Fiji \ Te Whiti.$

$Fiji/Te Whiti by Dr Rangihiroa Panoho Image: detail Fiji\ Te Whiti in ATAAROA show, eastern interior wall of Whetumārama, Kupe Waka Centre. The work which is about navigation was purposely positioned next to the paepae of the building which celebrates Sir Hekenukumai Busby and other major kaiwhakatere 'navigators' who have been responsible for the renaissance of Polynesian double hulled voyaging across Te Moananui-a-Kiwa 'the South Pacific'. The end wall features all of the rangatira who supported Uncle Hekenukumai's lifelong pioneering.$