Name Michael Parekowhai | ||
Education University of Auckland, Elam School of Fine Arts |
michael parekowhai the promised land opening night
Michael Te Rakato Parekowhai (born 1968) is a New Zealand sculptor and a professor at University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts. He is of Ngā Ariki Kaiputahi, Ngāti Whakarongo and Pākehā descent.
Contents
- michael parekowhai the promised land opening night
- Melbourne art fair michael parekowhai
- Early life
- Themes and style
- Notable works
- Solo
- Group
- Awards honours
- Collections
- References
Parekowhai was awarded an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award in 2001. He represented New Zealand at the 2011 Venice Biennale.
Melbourne art fair michael parekowhai
Early life
Parekowhai was born in Porirua. Both his parents were schoolteachers. He spent his childhood in Auckland's North Shore suburbs, where he also attended school. After leaving high school, Parekowhai worked as a florist's assistant before commencing his BFA at University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts (1987–1990). He trained as a high-school art teacher before returning to Elam to complete his MFA (1998–2000).
Themes and style
Parekowhai makes a variety of work across a range of media that intersects sculpture and photography. Sally Blundell, writing in the New Zealand Listener, says:
Originality, authenticity, ownership. In Parekowhai’s work, such notions blur, slipping into a collective act of translation that interweaves the canon of “high art” with cultural tradition, the handmade object with mass-produced tourist tat, the imported with the proudly colloquial.Despite the range of Parekowhai's output, his practice is linked throughout, both stylistically—a characteristic 'gloss' of high production value—and thematically.
Curator Justin Paton writes that Parekowhai's works "have a way of sneaking up on you, even when they're straight ahead." He continues:
Pick-up sticks swollen to the size of spears. A photograph of a stuffed rabbit who has you in his sights. A silky bouquet that rustles with politics. Seemingly serene beneath their gleaming, factory-finished surfaces, Michael Parekowhai's sculptures and photographs are in fact supremely artful objects. 'Artful' not just because they're beautifully made...but also because they manage, with a combination of slyness, charm and audacity, to spring ambushes that leave you richer.
Notable works
Solo
Group
Awards / honours
Collections
Parekowhai's work is held in most New Zealand public gallery collections and a number of international museums.