1 September, 2025

Artists put cultural lens on environmental concerns

Nocturnal inspiration… A ruru features among Rawiri Barriball’s striking digital artworks.

Four local Māori artists are using their creative abilities to focus on the power, beauty and vulnerability of the environment, in the hope their work will also inspire the community to act as kaitiaki.
Their exhibition, Te Reo o Te Taiao – The Voice of the Natural World, is on at Satellite2 gallery in Devonport from Saturday 30 August. Both traditional carving and weaving techniques and more modern applications will be on show, including striking digital prints and 3D-printed masks.
“It’s the four of us coming together to celebrate our ecosystems and our environment,” says carver Ngahiwi Walker. The Narrow Neck resident and Māori Cultural Advisor to the Navy is a familiar leader in community kapa haka and Matariki celebrations, and he notes the show’s end in mid-September is nicely timed with the lead-in to Māori Language Week, another event he and wife Terehia Walker are passionate about promoting locally.

These small masks replicating original wooden carvings by Natanahira Pona were made on a 3D printer, then colour washed.

Joining him in the exhibition is a Navy colleague, Rawiri Barriball, a senior combat specialist of 29 years service who lives in Bayswater. From childhood doodling – “I was a kid that drew on everything, and I mean everything” – he has branched out in the past few years from drawing to making digital prints.
“Something new happens – you’ve got to move with the times,” he says, noting the prints appeal to younger audiences. Images inspired by nature and ancestral stories include Paikea riding a whale and a ruru gazing sharp-eyed at the viewer.
Current affairs are also a prompt for his work, with the men all wanting to ensure the environment is safe and respected. The likes of bird and fish motifs appear on carved pou.
Takapuna-based Natanahira Pona, carver in residence and tutor at Lake House Arts Centre, has also been using new technologies to extend the reach of his craft. Experimenting with 3-D printing of wooden carvings that have taken many hours to fashion has yielded a series of wall plaques.
By scanning the original, he can create around a dozen pieces overnight. He then airbrushes the wheku (masks) and what he calls koruru, which have round eyes like those of the native owl. Other animals, not all with particular meaning to Māori, are among subjects he has depicted.

Environmental focus… Maori artists who live locally (from left) Rawiri Barriball from Bayswater, Natanahira Pona from Takapuna and Ngahiwi Walker from Narrow Neck are three of four participants in a group show coming to Devonport’s Satellite2 gallery this week. Their varied environmentally-themed works take a te ao view of issues they want the whole community to engage with.

Playing up the eyes is also seen in the more traditionally-made large wooden pou carved by Ngahiwi Walker. His columns are based on Tane to represent the land and Tangaroa the ocean. Perspex pieces are an addition, along with small images of lizards, birds and fish.
Weaver Tony Vecotic rounds out the North Shore group, but was not at the catch-up with the Flagstaff to talk about his work.
The men talk of satisfaction at seeing tūī and kererū in the local environment and the welcome efforts of Restoring Takarunga Hauraki and other groups to enhance it. They hope their exhibition celebrating nature through a Māori lens is another way to get the message across.