Notes On: Casting On

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30 Aug

Connie Brown on Peata Larkin and Alexis Neal’s exhibition Whakamata, Mangere Arts Centre, 23 July – 10 September 2022.

Alexis Neal (Ngāti Awa/Te Ātiawa) uses the phrase “a weave within a weave” to explain her technique for making whāriki, whose patterns play with direction, integrating the vertical and horizontal like acrostic poems. The phrase is a useful one to describe Whakamata in general—one to keep us poised to the many layers—literal, technical, spiritual—that Neal and her co-exhibitor Peata Larkin (Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Tuhourangi) engage with every one of the works they create.

Neal is foremost a print practitioner, and uses her printed paper in the place of harakeke to create three-dimensional woven works, with the delicate textures pressed into the paper forming the pattern’s understory. Shown alongside her etchings of taonga, kete and jewellery, Neal shows us how artefacts speak to one another, how their speech intermingles across time, and how they together tell the story of their makers.

Larkin’s painted works follow grid lines that guide the placement of blobs of acrylic paint. Built up in this way, the blobs form complex patterns that reference the idioms of tukutuku panels and raranga, and often refer us onward to places and stories of ancestral significance to the artist, such as Tuhourangi Tapestry (2006), Larkin’s ode to the Pink and White Terraces of which her tūpuna were guardians.

Her works have been compared to binary code, pixels and genomic sequencing, probably because, in each, the progression from the nano element to the whole is so evident. But that doesn’t do justice to their materiality. To me, their surfaces look like dough pressed through a sieve, holding the impression of its meshwork, which would make the perfect uniformity of their patterning something captured serendipitously, the trace element of something always present but mostly unseen.

Neal and Larkin are two artists whose engagement with raranga has always pushed toward its unfinished, loose edge, looking to fold more and more into what the practice can mean and do. The exhibition’s orientation toward Whakamata—the first line woven in a kakahu / cloak—acknowledges the strong, taught weave at the origin of what makes their work possible, and what supports the weaves within weaves and more weaves to come.

Alexis Neal, *Ruaruawhetu; Wairua; Whero is Red; Poutama; Waharua II; Ururangi, Purapura whetu; Waipunarangi; Tupuaanuku; Rau Putiputi; Atawhai; Toi Whenua; Kaokao I, Vintage mumu; With Horizontals I,* 15 suspended whariki (detail), selection of early and recent works, printed woven whāriki on 300 gsm Hahnemuhle paper

Peata Larkin, *I am Tuhourangi*, 2007, acrylic on mesh on canvas, two panels each 160 x 265 cm (overall 160 x 530 cm); Alexis Neal, *Kete Whakairo*, taaniko thread kete, orange macramé and knitting silk thread, adorned with an element from the sea, 23 x 27 cm; Alexis Neal, *Kete Tuauri*, taaniko thread kete, purple macramé and knitting silk thread, adorned with an element from the sea, 23 x 27 cm

Peata Larkin, *Between Two Pou* (detail), 2018, acrylic on embroidered silk, three panels each 200 x 100 cm (overall size 200 x 300 cm). Courtesy of Milford Galleries, Dunedin & Queenstown

Peata Larkin, *Pōkarekare*, 2020, acrylic, pure pigments, transparent medium on mesh and flexiface membrane on LED lightbox unit, 156.7 x 111.7 x 8.7 cm. Courtesy of Milford Galleries; Peata Larkin, *Parai_Shield*, 2022, acrylic on embroidered silk, 120 x 120 x 4 cm. Courtesy of Two Rooms; Peata Larkin, *Paria e te tai*, 2020, acrylic, pure pigments, transparent medium on mesh and flexiface membrane on LED lightbox unit, 81.7 x 132.8 x 8.8. Courtesy of Milford Galleries

Alexis Neal, *Kete Moana*, taaniko thread kete, red macramé and knitting silk thread, adorned with an element from the sea, 19 x 29 cm

Alexis Neal, *With Horizontals II*, Hahnemuhle 300 gsm paper printed and finely woven, 200 x 50 cm; Alexis Neal, *Rei, Toki*, multi plate soft ground and dry point etching with Thai Mulberry chine-collé on Hahnemuhle paper, 60 x 40 cm; Alexis Neal, *Ka mua ka muri*, multi plate mezzotints with Zerkall chine-collé on Hahnemuhle paper, 60 x 40 cm; Alexis Neal, *Mau kaki Paraaoa*, multi plate soft ground and dry point etching with Thai Mulberry chine-collé on Hahnemuhle paper, 60 x 40 cm; Alexis Neal, *Hei Tiaki*, multi plate soft ground and dry point etching with Thai Mulberry chine-collé on Hahnemuhle paper, 60 x 40 cm

Alexis Neal, *Marereko*, war amulet necklace with 12 carved female Huia beaks and one male carved in deer antler, 16 thread braided necklace. Special acknowledgement to Derek Murphy and Matene Sisnett

Alexis Neal, *Kete Whatu taaniko*, taaniko thread kete, black and Ivory macramé and knitting silk thread, 25 x 35 cm

Peata Larkin, *I am Tuhourangi* (detail), 2007, acrylic on mesh on canvas, two panels each 160 x 265 cm (overall 160 x 530 cm)

Alexis Neal, 15 suspended whariki, selection of early and recent works, reconfigured triangle installation (5, 4, 3, 2, 1), printed woven whāriki on 300 gsm Hahnemuhle paper

Alexis Neal, *Kahu raranga konunu,* bluey black printed finely woven cloak, 300 gsm Hahnemühle paper with wooden cloak pin braided whiri, 88 x 110 cm; Peata Larkin, *Ko Tongoriro tōku maunga II,* 2020, acrylic on linen. Courtesy of Two Rooms

Alexis Neal, *Kahu raranga konunu,* bluey black printed finely woven cloak, 300 gsm Hahnemühle paper with wooden cloak pin braided whiri, 88 x 110 cm

Peata Larkin & Alexis Neal, *Whakamata.* Installation view, Mangere Arts Centre, Tāmaki Makaurau, July 2022

Peata Larkin, *Ko Tūwharetoa tōku iwi,* 2020, acrylic on wax cotton printed fabric, 125 x 105 x 6 cm. Courtesy of Two Rooms; Alexis Neal, *Tahi, Rua, Toru, Whā, Rima, Ono, Whati,* herringbone, raranga whakairo, printed, finely woven whāriki on 300 gsm Hahnemühle paper; six panels 140 x 30 each; Peata Larkin, *Te Kupenga (The Net_Silver*, 2018, screen print on paper, printed image 81.5 x 61 cm. Courtesy of Two Rooms, Auckland

All photos: Sam Hartnett

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