Tracey Tawhiao

 In art, we have been looking at different Maori artists. We painted artworks in reference to Tracey Tawhiao's art. She is famous for her subversive artworks made of newspaper with controversial ideas. She paints over the long paragraphs creating grids to overlay various patterns. We then replicated her technique by first picking a subject out of a newspaper by highlighting words.

 I chose battle and justice, then a sentence "Life has changed for us already". Then block out the newspaper's paragraphs with white paint and then layering them with the two colors I chose. Red and Orange. I surrounded the word battle with red because it represents bloodshed.  

Below that, I painted a musket and patu to represent the musket wars among Maori between 1807 and 1837.

"The Life has changed for us already" Which is surrounded by korus which represents life. 

I then painted a lady which is inspired by another Maori artist named Robyn Kahukiwa. I replicated the flat style and the way she draws her figures tilting their heads resembling the hei tiki, then painted a red circle behind her that I smudged a bit to blend with the background. 

I then surrounded the word justice with feathers that symbolize the Parihaka where children and women wore feathers on their heads as peaceful resistance to keep their land from being invaded. Below are weights that represent justice. 

On two of the orange blocks, I painted triangles with black, white, and red paint that represent mountains.