Courtesy: the artist and Page Galleries, Wellington.

Hiria Anderson-Mita (b.1974, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Rereahu) surveys her immediate surroundings and those individuals and relationships within her small community of Ōtorohanga through her painting practice, set against the backdrop of wider issues and contemporary politics. While on one hand these works are deeply personal, on the other they extend far beyond the artist and her own immediate relationships. “I paint about those things that are affecting our people.”

The artist captures in detail the intimacy, incongruity, and poeticism of the everyday and with it the interplay between tikanga Māori and contemporary municipal life. While her works regularly convey bustling activity, they are equally occupied by a sense of absence; painstakingly depicting figures from obscure viewpoints, vacant spaces, or the minutiae of discarded objects.

“Te Hokinga Mai translates as ‘The Return’ and references how us as a people and whānau are guided by the principles of our culture that return us back home to our ancestral lands. To bury our dead, to gather, to cook and feed each other, to karakia. I show glimpses of the last few months. For me personally Te Hokinga Mai means I am returning home where I came from.”

Opening Event: Thursday 28 March, from 5pm.

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