Research-Lisa Reihana

Lisa Reihana: Digital Marae
A powerful photographic and new media series by leading Maori artist Lisa Reihana, in Govett-Brewster Gallery, 2007

Reihana’s work communicates complex ideas about indigenous identity and bi-cultural living and in this ongoing series she continues her investigation of the concept of the marae. In Digital marae she recreates a wharenui within a digital realm.

In a modern take on the pouwhenua or wooden carvings found lining a wharenui, Reihana’s large and dramatic photographs represent Maori ancestral figures. These images are imbued with a feeling of magic surrealism, seamlessly blending the traditional with contemporary elements. Govett-Brewster Director Rhana Devenport says, “Lisa Reihana’s Digital marae is without a doubt one of the most poetic and powerful photographic series produced in New Zealand in recent times. “This presentation of the work includes new dimensions within the series and the Govett-Brewster is honoured to be presenting these works for the first time.”

Her work is held in numerous public and private collections and she has a strong international presence, most recently exhibiting in Global feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum, and Native Portraits at Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea in Rome and delivering a lecture at the Tate Modern in London.

Research from

qag.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/apt/apt_2002

Research- Billy Apple/ NZ USA

Billy Apple is one of a handful of New Zealanders who have had an impact on the international art scene. He has been at the forefront of two art movements, first in London (pop art) then in New York (pop and conceptual art). His work is held across the USA in public collections such as the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, California; Boise Art Museum, Idaho; and the Corning Museum of Glass, New York. He is widely represented in New Zealander’s major institutions and art collections.
Billy Apple was born Barrie Bates in Auckland in 1935. In 1959 he left New Zealand on a National Art Gallery scholarship. He studied at the Royal College of Art, London, from 1959 until 1962. In 1962 he changed his name to Billy Apple and moved to New York in 1964. In 1969 he established “Apple,” one of the first alternative spaces in New York. In the 1970s, he returned to New Zealand twice, with support from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, each time exhibiting in spaces throughout the country. He returned to New Zealand, permanently in 1990. He lives in Auckland.

research from http://www.google.com/