Woven Form No. 7, 2021. Harakeke, kiekie, muka and synthetic fibre on board. 70 × 55 cm.
Lot 012 · Works on Paper
Woven Form No. 7
Aroha Ngāta
Year
2021
Medium
Harakeke, kiekie, muka and synthetic fibre on board
Dimensions
70 × 55 cm
Estimate
NZD 5,500–8,000
The seventh work in Ngāta's ongoing series, this piece was made during a period of intensive research into the tukutuku panels of the Tūhoe meeting houses of the Urewera. The composition is built from a grid of interlaced fibres — natural and synthetic, rough and smooth — that creates a surface of extraordinary tactile and visual complexity. The colour palette is restricted to the natural tones of the harakeke and kiekie, with a single thread of deep red synthetic fibre running through the lower third of the composition as a structural and symbolic counterpoint.
Artist
Aroha Ngāta
Aroha Ngāta (b. 1983, Gisborne) is a New Zealand artist of Ngāti Porou descent whose practice brings together the traditions of Māori weaving — tukutuku, whatu and raranga — with the formal concerns of contemporary abstract art. She studied at the University of Auckland and completed a residency at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 2018. Her Woven Form series, begun in 2019, uses natural fibres — harakeke, kiekie and muka — alongside synthetic materials to create works that are simultaneously objects of cultural knowledge and formal investigations into structure, pattern and surface.