Star Gossage – Marae, 2013, Oil on board; Kikorangi Kōtare, 2014, Oil on board; Au II, 2012, Oil on board.
5 May – 22 August 2021 (extended)
Ground floor Galleries
Opening: Tuesday 4 May, 6pm
He Tangata The People, is the first major survey of works by Pākiri-based painter Star Gossage (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Ruanui) emerging from her wahine-based, female centred world. It expresses the view that people are bound by wairua, whenua, whakapapa and whānau – spirit, land, ancestry and family.
Spanning a 20-year period, the exhibition highlights her use of portrait and figure in the landscape. In portraying her day-to-day reality, themes of unity, grief, resilience, and aroha/love emerge.
Star paints people from memory and does not set out to depict specific individuals in her paintings, although people do emerge through the process. At times, those depicted are hybrids of herself and others. In this way, her evocative and emotional paintings show us how identity is fluid and collective, how relationships are primary, and how one is necessarily part of the many.
