Nephi Tupaea, Follow where the work lies, 2024. Acrylic on canvas, 90 x 115cm. Courtesy: the artist and Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland.

Nephi Tupaea’s Te Tangata explores the urban drift of Māori communities after the world wars through artworks by Gauguin, Van Gogh, Millet and Hughes Merle, re-imagined in kōwhaiwhai designs.

Rosie Dawson-Hughes writes: “Post-impressionist and realist paintings of workers now speak to the movements of indigenous working-class people (including Tupaea’s parents) in search of a better lifestyle.”

They explore “the racial discrimination, racism, prejudice, the colonial effect from the 1920s to 1960s, right through my childhood”, Tupaea says. “I’m appropriating the European artists that infiltrated our education system. When I grew up the only resources they gave us in the arts were European. There was nothing culturally significant to Māori students like myself. So this is my way of asking – what does decolonisation look like?”

Opening Event: Wednesday 3 July, 6 – 8pm.

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