Artist

Robyn Kahukiwa

Name: Robyn Kahukiwa
Iwi/Ethnicity: Ngāti Porou/MāoriTe Aitanga-a-Hauiti/MāoriNgāti Kōnohi/MāoriTe Whānau-a-Ruataupare/Ngāti Porou/Māori
Date of Birth: 14 Sep 1938
Place of Birth: Sydney/New South Wales/Australia
Date of Death: 11 Apr 2025
Place of Death: Wellington (city)/Wellington (region)/New Zealand

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Biography

Robyn Kahukiwa - of Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, Ngāti Konohi, and Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare descent - is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s pre-eminent Māori artists. Since her first solo exhibition in 1971, she has been engaged in representing Māori as a way of supporting the reclamation of tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty and self-determination).

Early paintings by Kahukiwa investigated urban Māori communities and expressed her personal search for cultural identity through the depiction of ancestral figures. She soon earned national recognition through the 1983 exhibition Wāhine Toa: Omniscient Māori Women.

Ranging from the intimate to the monumental, the paintings of Kahukiwa are primarily concerned with the ongoing impacts of the colonial history of New Zealand on contemporary Māori life and lives, and the bravery shown in response. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present, 2023.

In 2020, Kahukiwa received Te Tohu Aroha mō Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu | Exemplary/Supreme Award at Te Waka Toi Awards, in recognition of her life’s work.