The exhibition before the exhibition: art in the making

Visitors to NPDC’s Puke Ariki will be able to watch, and talk with, artists at work from today through to 12 July, as the Temporary Gallery is converted into a working studio.

Guided by senior artist WharehokaSmith alongside early-career artists Jodie Tipa and Dwayne Duthie, TUKU: Open Studio | Emerging Māori Artists is a unique collaborative project, offering rare access for the public to see how new artworks take shape.

The open studio experience will prepare the museum’s Temporary Gallery for the touring Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award exhibition, opening at Puke Ariki on 25 July.

“TUKU is about inviting people into a collaborative, creative process, to see how shared knowledge and ideas evolve into finished works,” says Puke Ariki Museum Director, Frith Williams. “It’s designed to support the incoming portraiture exhibition, which celebrates ringtoi Māori and ongoing connections with tūpuna (ancestors). WharehokaSmith, Jodi, and Dwayne will be responding to the connections they represent.”

For the first six weeks, the artists will create, adorn, and enliven eight manaia (spiritual guardian figures). These figures will watch over the gallery and acknowledge the mana carried by the 40 tūpuna portraits featured in the Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award exhibition.

TUKU: Open Studio centres on the artists’ process, mentoring, and experimentation in real time. Rather than presenting as a finished exhibition, the open studio invites visitors to return to see how the manaia artworks are developing. There may be times when the artists are not working onsite; however, the exhibition space will remain open for viewing.

Once completed, the eight manaia will remain in place and form part of the portraiture exhibition.  

A programme of free public events supports the TUKU: Open Studio experience, including Tea with the TUKU artists, TUKU Waiata, Gelli Printing with Gabrielle Fawkner, Working with Textiles with Aleisha Hall, zine-making, Studio Play with TUKU artists, and drop‑in Mess, Make, Play sessions. Further information about the events is on Puke Ariki’s website: pukeariki.com.

Artist information:

WharehokaSmith (Te Ātiawa, Taranaki, Ngāruahine, Pākehā) is a senior Taranaki artist whose large-scale works draw on customary forms and imagery to express perspectives grounded in te ao Māori. WharehokaSmith has previously exhibited work at both Puke Ariki and Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.

Jodie Tipa (Kāi Tahu ki Moeraki) brings new focus to enduring patterns laden with ancestral significance in her large installation artworks. She explores whakapapa (genealogy) and identity through abstract designs expressed in woven forms such as raranga and tukutuku panels. In TUKU: Open Studio, she envisages the newly created manaia guiding, protecting, and affirming active connections between past and present.

Dwayne Duthie (Taranaki, Te Ātiawa, Pākehā) is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, sculpture, and video. Figures in his work gaze directly at the viewer, prompting reflection on the human condition, innocence, identity, power, and control. As part of TUKU: Open Studio, Duthie will explore Māori cultural concepts and their relationship to his practice and its future direction.

At a glance:

• Puke Ariki, meaning Hill of Chiefs, stands on a former prominent pā site in central New Plymouth.
• It opened in 2003 as a combined library and museum – an innovative storehouse for Taranaki’s taonga and stories.
• The museum presents both long-term and regularly changing exhibitions across six gallery spaces.
• The central and community libraries offer many events designed to foster a love of reading, learning and connection.
• Puke Ariki also houses a research centre, restaurant and café, and the district’s i-SITE visitor information and ticketing hub.

Caption: Early-career artists Jodie Tipa (left) and Dwayne Duthie (right) will work under the mentorship of senior Taranaki artist WharehokaSmith during TUKU: Open Studio | Emerging Māori Artists.