Tawhai Rickard, King Tāwhiao, Māori King of Spades (Four of a Kind), 2024, oil on wooden panel, 310mm H x 230mm W x 20mm D

Tim Melville Gallery opens their 2025 program and 200th exhibition with a group show of work by ten Māori artists working across painting, installation, uku, sculpture and photography.

At the opening of the Rugby World Cup in 1999 Hinewehi Mohi performed New Zealand’s national anthem in Te Reo Māori. She received huge backlash in the NZ press at the time but today, 25 years later, we are reminded how far our country has come when school-children sing the anthem as easily in Te Reo Māori as they do in Te Reo Pākehā.

As another Waitangi Day approaches, and as the NZ Justice Committee hears public submissions on the Government’s Treaty Principles Bill, the words of the late Ngāpuhi statesman, Sir James Henare, whisper in our ears: “You have come too far, not to go further. You have done too much, not to do more.”