The family

This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).

Whānau and whānaungatanga — family and family relations — are central to Māori values, to Māori identity and oratanga (well-being). The family explores the close relationship between a central daughter figure and her parents (father on the left, mother on the right) in a semi-circular installation that subtly encompasses her. Lightly embedded in the torso of the mother is the embryonic form of a fourth family member. The figurative type and treatment employed here is akin to that found in Para Matchitt’s poupou-like Rangi and Papa totems, commissioned the year before, 1965, for Sacred Heart Girls’ College in Hamilton.

The appearance of The family (as with Rangi and Papa) is the result of the materials used and the carving technique employed. Cut from a single tōtara log, these carefully milled slices of precious native wood have a thin, elongated shape which requires carving with shallow inverse strokes. This relief technique was pioneered by Matchitt’s fellow Māori arts and crafts adviser Muru Walters. In lacking the freestanding three-dimensional volume traditionally found in te toi whakairo, or the art of Māori carving, Matchitt is instead heavily reliant on iconography, surface detail and individual mannerisms to convey character and storyline.

The iconic yet humorous treatment of the figures reflects two influences important at the time: traditional Māori carving and the abstract painting of Australian artist Leonard French. Both sources helped Matchitt explore the gender, the unique persona and the gestural qualities of each family member. The tall male figure, for example, features a curve behind his shoulders suggesting an enveloping korowai (cloak). The layering of symbols in the puku, or abdomen, of the woman indicates — as in meeting-house carving and the stacked figures in the 1965 Sacred Heart totems — lines of whakapapa, or ancestral descent. The smallest figure, the daughter with arms upraised, features the ‘tū tangata’ figurative form found throughout Matchitt’s own Te Whānau-ā-Apanui meeting house Tūkākī at Te Kaha. In The family, this gesture is a connecting device between the three figures, suggesting the daughter is demanding attention from
her parents above.

Rangihīroa Panoho

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In 2008, Te Papa acquired two early works by Paratene Matchitt, a pivotal figure in the founding of the contemporary Māori arts movement. Matchitt was one of a group of artists known as the ‘Māori modernists’ – the first Māori artists to work with the styles, materials, and techniques of modern European art.

Here, his early sculpture The family (1966) and the painting Te Kooti at Ruatahuna (1967) are shown alongside his 2008 sculpture, The red heart. Although these works were created more than 30 years apart, they have much in common – especially in subject matter, in Matchitt’s vocabulary of symbols, and in his treatment of colour.

The red heart depicts the heart symbol and colour of Te Wepu, the battle flag of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki. Te Kooti was the founder of the Ringatu faith, a protagonist for political change in the 19th century, and a key innovator in Māori art.

In the 1960s, Paratene Matchitt began drawing on Te Kooti's philosophies and symbolism in his work, and in particular reproduced Te Wepu many times. Te Kooti had defined the heart on Te Wepu as a symbol of the sufferings of the Māori nation.

The family is an early sculpture by Matchitt, and was exhibited in one of the first Māori arts shows ever held – the Māori Art Festival, in Hamilton in 1966.

This text was prepared for the Collecting Contemporary exhibition, 2011-2012.