Ipu One (Lapita Series)

item details

NameIpu One (Lapita Series)

ProductionColleen Waata Urlich; artist; 2002; Dargaville

Classificationsculpture

Materials SummaryNorthland terracotta, Australian raku clays, wax resist and terra sigillata ceramic

DimensionsOverall: 230 (width), 700 (height), 230 (depth), 230 (diameter), 12kg (weight)

Registration Number2003-0010-1

Credit linePurchased 2003

Overview

Those Proto-Polynesians, known generally as the Lapita peoples, introduced an artistic legacy, originally in the form of distinctive patterns on ceramics. All Polynesians are inheritors of that legacy, and each Polynesian nation has contributed to the continuing evolution of that artistic heritage. In Aotearoa, that design legacy is particularly evident in the women’s art of weaving.

Colleen Waata Urlich

Colleen Waata Urlich’s signature works, like this one, are large urn-like forms that look back at Lapita pottery practices. She connected this 4,000-year-old Pacific ceramics legacy with the present by translating the rectilinear patterns punched into Lapita pots as painted design elements in her work.

Lapita patterns feature not only in Māori weaving but also as design elements in tapa (bark cloth) and tatau (tattoos) throughout the Pacific.