Mia Straka: The Talisman Project
11 February, 2014 - 27 April, 2014
The Little Gallery
Mia Straka, Multiprism (2013), plastic, hemp cord, galvanized steel wire. Photography courtesy of David Straight
Mia Straka, Inner (2013), Mixed Media. Photography courtesy of David Straight
Mia Straka studied three dimensional design at Auckland’s Unitec Institute of Technology, graduating with an honours degree majoring in jewellery in 2001. Since then she has worked as a jeweller in London, Switzerland and New Zealand. She has been based at Workshop6 jewellery studio in Kingsland since 2009, teaching jewellery night classes and workshops while developing her own practice.
Recently Straka’s practice has evolved to include large scale sculptural work, installations and collaborations. The works exhibited here are part of a series of large scale sculptures called The Talisman Project. The project was conceived in collaboration with object maker Roger Kelly to extend shared concerns from within both artists’ individual practices and to create site specific sculptural works that engage a diverse audience in an interactive experience.
The exhibited pieces draw inspiration from traditional ways of making and woven basket forms; alluding to traditional values and what one chooses to contain and carry with them. The Māori legend of Tane ascending to the heavens to retrieve three baskets of knowledge for the enlightenment of mankind has been a reference point for much of Straka’s work over the past few years.
I consider these sculptural works as drawings in space; they have a temporary, changing nature. The structures are flexible and have moving facets that can be easily altered into new forms. I begun making with the desire to create light forms in space, ideas of containment, protection, structure and de-structure, private and public that have long informed my work all come into play. Each sculptural work is intended to act as a shelter for the participant. Looking at the Talisman as a form of protection with reference to the long history of symbolism behind such objects, it has been intriguing to see the elements that had already crept into my work on a sub-conscious level or by chance through the nature of the materials. The triangle and opposing triangles as a symbol of balance, the ‘holy trinity’, good and evil, also the interlaced triangle and how it has been a symbol within various ancient religions has informed the work. References to the hourglass, Hinake (traditional Māori eel trap) and the body are also present in the forms.
Mia Straka 2013
The Talisman Project was made with the generous support of Creative New Zealand