Call For Entries: The Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award 2023

Entries for the 2023 Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award are now invited.

The award, a partnership between the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata and the Office of the Kiingitanga, was launched in 2020 in honour of Kiingi Tuheitia to inspire a new generation of emerging Māori artists to create portraits of their tūpuna (ancestors).

Artists are given an opportunity to showcase their talent on a national stage while competing for a First Prize of $20,000. The Runner-Up and People's Choice Award provide $2,500 respectively.

Entries are open to emerging Māori artists who have either created an artwork within the last two years, or wish to create an artwork especially for the competition, using any visual medium, with whakapapa connections to the depicted tūpuna.

The finalist artworks will be judged by a distinguished panel comprising renowned artists at the opening of the exhibition. These include Māori multi-disciplinary, portrait artist Graham Hoete aka "Mr G", Māori researcher, artist, arts educator and curator, Steve Gibbs, and artist Lisa Reihana, who is known around the world for her portraits and digital art.

Director of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Jaenine Parkinson, says the Award provides emerging Māori artists with the opportunity to showcase their talents on the national stage, while also playing an important role in recording and celebrating tūpuna (ancestors) and their stories.

The inaugural award was held in 2021, and winner Bodie Friend says it was a life-changing moment for him

“Reflecting back, it was such a blessing to be selected for the award, but just being involved in the kaupapa and connecting with other Māori artists from around the country was a profound and amazing experience for me.

Having my artwork sit shoulder to shoulder with some of my favourite artists, and have it featured in a published programme is mind-blowing for me and it has given me the confidence to continue to move and explore my creativity and identity as a Māori artist.

The more Māori artists are given the opportunity to shine the better, both for our culture but it also inspires others like me who might be there thinking they can’t, why bother, or that no one cares about what they have to share. Kāo, share. In saying that, they also need a platform, an advocate, and that’s why the Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award is so important.”

The exhibition of finalist artworks will be showcased in Te Whanganui-a-Tara at The New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata, on Thursday 25 May – Sunday 20 August. Finalist artworks will then tour the country.

Entries close on 23 March 2023 and the winners will be announced at the exhibition opening on Wednesday 24 May 2023.

An information pack on how to enter is available to download from nzportraitgallery.org.nz/kiingituheitiaaward

Notes:

2023 Judges:

Graham Hoete

Graham Hoete aka "Mr G" (Ngati Awa, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngati Ranginui) is an Māori multi-disciplinary, portrait artist from Tauranga Moana, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Raised in Kawerau as a child, Graham is now recognized nationally and globally for his visual story telling through his portraiture work with the recurring theme of hononga connection - connecting people to place. Graham has painted portraits throughout the globe as a full time artist for the last 18 years with work in Scotland, America, Australia, Wharekauri Chatham Islands and is currently working on his own book 100 Portraits in Aotearoa New Zealand.

His most recent commissioned work was a five-storey-high tribute portrait of Hana Te Hemara, Leader of Nga Tamatoa who presented the Māori Language Petition to Parliament in 1972. This portrait is located in the centre of Ngamotu New Plymouth and is currently the largest portrait in New Zealand. "He karoro ahau, o nga karoro inu tai, o te haupapa kohatu, i te Moutere o Motiti"

Lisa Reihana

Lisa Reihana (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Hine, Ngāi Tūteauru, Ngāi Tupoto), lives and works in Auckland. Reihana represented New Zealand in 2017 at the Venice Biennale with the exhibition Emissaries. AGNSW has commissioned a substantial video work for their new Sydney Modern Gallery, Australia; and Reihana presented Kura Moana as the Artist in Focus for the Aotearoa New Zealand Arts Festival. Recent exhibitions include Christian Louboutin L'exhibitionist Grimaldi Forum, Monaco; Māori Moving Image ki Te Puna Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery; and Toi Tu, Toi Ora at Auckland Art Gallery in Auckland. in Pursuit of Venus [infected] continues to tour internationally. She was shortlisted for the Walters Prize in 2008 and 2016, was awarded an Arts Laureate in 2014 and CNZM in 2022.

Reihana is renowned for her animations and video works including Wog Features, 1990 and A Māori Dragon Story, 1995 and Digital Marae 2001. Lisa’s work is held in private and public collections including Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington; Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland; Australia National Gallery, Canberra; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; LACMA Museum, Los Angeles and Brooklyn Museum, New York. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University and a Masters in Design from UNITEC School of Visual Art and Design.

Steve Gibbs

Steve Gibbs (Ngāi Tāmanuhiri, Rongowhakaata, Rongomaiwahine) is a Māori researcher, artist, arts educator and curator, born and raised in Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa/Gisborne. He earned a Diploma of Fine Arts from Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury, in 1978. He moved back to Gisborne in 1994 and began his role as a principal tutor, alongside Sir Derek Lardelli and Sandy Adsett, at the school of contemporary Māori visual arts, Toihoukura. Gibbs completed his Masters in Māori Visual Arts from Massey University in 2006.

Gibbs holds a personal commitment to the development of contemporary Māori visual arts, with Tairāwhiti and local iwi Māori, as well as with international indigenous art communities. Involved in Ngā Puna Waihanga (the national body of Māori artists and writers) and a member of Te Ātinga, he has exhibited his substantial body of work both nationally and internationally.

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