Priceless art plates, are to be given away at the upcoming Ōtāhuhu Food Festival.
Five different artworks, valued at $250.00 each, have been lovingly hand-printed onto classic enamel camping plates, these have been crafted especially to give to the local community.
The artists involved are;
The Ōtahuhu Food Festival is happening Saturday 1st October 2022. After a 3 year hiatus, it’s back and better than ever. The Ōtāhuhu Food Festival has over 80 awesome food vendors set to participate this year and is recognised as the largest and longest ethnic street food festival in Tāmaki Makarau, with an amazing array of food from around the world.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Andy Leleisi’uao
Andy Leleisi’uao is one of the most significant Pacific artists living and working in New Zealand today. He is New Zealand born of Samoan heritage and known for his modern and post-modern Pacific paintings and art. He was the paramount winner at the 26th annual Wallace Art Awards in 2017 and awarded a Senior Pacific Artist Award at the Arts Pasifika Awards in 2021. Andy Leleisi’uao’s work is included in the permanent New Zealand collections of Pataka Museum Art Gallery, Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, the Chartwell Collection and the Wallace Arts Trust collection.
About his artwork: A Choir of Brown Angels.
These brown angels spend their time making their universe a better place. At unpredictable times during the day and night from a scaffold, they are busy painting faded rainbows, polishing stars, washing the moon, pumping flat clouds with air, and watering flowers and trees among other things. In this piece, they are simply spreading love.
Andy is represented by Artis Gallery in Auckland.
Iokapeta Magele-Suamasi
Iokapeta Magele-Suamasi is an Aotearoa born artist of Samoan heritage (Lufilufi | Satalo, Falealili). She is a proud Ōtarian and her background includes freelance design, ceramics, community outreach, gallery education, and technology. Her postgraduate studies in arts management and technological futures have recently informed her art where she has alluded to ethical A.I., digital inclusion, and data sovereignty for Moana people.
About the artwork: Birds on a Plate
The ‘birds’ allude to the urban colloquialism mentioned by rap artist Ice Cube in his 1993 hit Ghetto Birds in reference to Police helicopters. Ghetto Birds are of course a daily sight and ‘sound’ in Ōtara. The design is an abstraction from a source photo taken in 2021 capturing a powerline worker being suspended in the air to work on a local pylon.
Follow Ioka’s work on Instagram @ioka_peta
Lissy Robinson–Cole
Lissy Robinson–Cole is a self-taught kai-tuimāwhai who grew up in a bustling creative force, raised by her mother, Mairehau (and whānau of performers and weavers), and her father, Colin Cole, a renowned New Zealand couturier. Lissy Robinson-Cole is a multidisciplinary artist (crochet).
In 2014, Lissy met Rudi Robinson, her husband-to-be. Gearing up for their wedding in 2017, they dedicated their future artistic partnership to their ancestors and the universe. In 2021, Lissy and Rudi became Artists in Residence at Nathan Homestead in Manurewa, where their studio is based.
Lissy liked the idea of art on the street after discovering the work of the L. A based yarn bomber, London Kaye. Inspiring artworks for the local community and bringing joy to unloved spaces, they created a giant Anzac Day poppy (2018) on the Princes Street motorway overbridge. They covered their car entirely with crochet in ‘The Joyride’ (2019).
Since then, the duo has been in fifteen exhibitions. Their subsequent major work, Wharenui Harikoa, is a large-scale crocheted wharenui that aims to transform intergenerational trauma into deeply felt joy, one loop at a time. The plans for this work include travelling throughout Aotearoa and the world, creating a global impact of aroha.
About this artwork: Aroha
Aroha is the driving force behind the mahi Rudi and I create. Everything we create is in celebration of our Tūpuna and our people. The loving memories of our nanas and aunties and uncles long gone as well as the aroha that surrounds us from our whānau, our children and our mokopuna is what sustains us.
Follow fabulous Lissy & Rudy on Instagram @lissyandrudi
Loa Toetu’u
Ahotae’iloa Toetu’u is a Tongan-born artist and teacher who lives and works in South Auckland. Toetu’u works in the medium of painting and has exhibited his works in several solo and group exhibitions in Auckland. Several of his works are heavily inspired by ngatu as a medium that records a time and place and particular events and histories. Many of his recent works pair kupesi with contemporary icons and silhouettes to create new conversations between the past and present.
My works are drawn from my family and my Tongan heritage and culture. I saw ngatu, ta’ovala, woven mats and beautifully decorated dance attire. I took a minimal approach to the kupesi or Ngatu designs and the use of repetition of simple forms to create an illusion. Building from this understanding, I liked the way Tongan women combined traditional kupesi with modern figurative designs to create a narrative and used this to record a space and time of a particular event.
About this artwork: Moana
Moana translates as the Deep Ocean. When I created this painting I was inspired by the colours of the Moana which has hues of blues and the repetitive lines created a wave-like pattern. The combination of other colours was a metaphor for the diversity of the Pacific and the World we live in today.
Check out more of Loa’s work on Instagram @loatoetuu
Rudi Robinson–Cole
Rudi Robinson–Cole grew up surrounded by whānau in the small forestry town of Kaingaroa, Bay of Plenty. Rudi says he was born with a chainsaw in his hands and is now as proficient with a crochet hook as he is a chainsaw. Rudi is a multidisciplinary artist (crochet).
As a child, Rudi would spend countless hours exploring the forest or out in the shed at the back of his house where he would create. This is where he says he began a love of making. “We had to make do with very little, so it forced me to use my imagination to bring my creations to life.”
In 2014 Rudi worked alongside acclaimed artist Eugene Kara to set up the first Māori foundry at Te Puia Māori Arts and Crafts Institute Rotorua. Here they worked on creating the first bronze cast whatarangi under the initiative “Māori Tū” led by the Iwi Chairs Forum to demonstrate Aotearoa’s support for the UN’s Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Rudi and Lissy work collaboratively utilising contemporary techniques with customary Māori carving to create structural forms. In 2020 they showcased their experimental work in a joint exhibition Ka Puawaitia – Coming to Fruition at Corban Estate Art Centre.
About this artwork: Aroaromahana
This image depicts Aroaromahana which means the welcoming of the warmth of spring.
Art Ache is a visual arts activation platform that has been supporting artists and their mahi for almost 10 years. Art Ache communicates fine art and creative thought to a wide and varied audience through events, social media, digital billboard campaigns, podcasts and other bespoke activations. Founder and director Aimee Ralfini created the Art Ache to help strengthen New Zealand’s creative muscle. Art Ache believes artists are the litmus paper of society, changemakers, who create new pathways towards holistic wellbeing.
Aimee Ralfini has mentored and generated interview podcasts for well over 200 New Zealand artists, from emerging to Aotearoa’s most esteemed. She has produced over 20 art events, hosted an art radio show for four years, and writes about a selection of exhibitions in Tāmaki Makaurau, which is published monthly in Verve Magazine.
This is an Art Ache activation supported by Ōtāhuhu-Māngere Arts
