What a difference a year makes. When I reviewed last year’s annual Māpura Studios exhibition at the Pah Homestead – A Multiplicity of Voices: Celebrating the perspectives of Pasifika artists at Māpura Studios – Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland was in the tail end of a Covid lockdown and the show was forced online. Even so it was clear to the viewer that the works made up a diverse and exciting exhibition by a number of Pasifika artists who work out of Māpura Studios.

Māpura Studios is a creative space located in central Auckland, with satellite groups in other areas, offering inclusive, multi-modal art classes and art therapy programmes for people of all ages, diversity and need, as well as the wider community. They provide a professional service in person-centred visual arts learning, creative therapies, and arts practice – and maintain an extensive exhibition calendar for their artists. (Māpura, 2022a)

Now in its eighth consecutive year at the Pah Homestead, this year’s exhibition is shown in the Master Bedroom Gallery, and spills out into the upstairs foyer. Māpura Studios: Just my Imagination features the work of twelve artists. It is a relief, like with so many other aspects of life, to see the works back in the physical space. Here again are some familiar artists, but a few new names too. I don’t know whether it was partly seeing the actual artwork rather than a digital copy on screen, but this curated selection felt to me to be truly up a notch. Professionally curated and installed, this is a worthy addition to the art landscape of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and an important celebration of work by artists living with disability.

I include a statement from Māpura Studios here as I want to acknowledge that this exhibition really does exemplify that the artists and staff are upholding, and more, the kaupapa of the centre:

In our visual art programmes, participants... are supported to explore and experiment, and to develop new ways of thinking and perceiving through the ‘making’ process; they are encouraged to consider the content and meaning of their works, and to develop their own concepts, ideas and imagining... The development of individual, self-directed arts practice is also supported so artists can really grow their arts practice to a degree of competency suitable for exhibition. (Māpura, 2022a)

The 14 paintings and two video projections filled the room with colour and vitality. I read in the exhibition statement that the “video projections and largely abstract paintings reflect feelings observed and passionately executed. These abstractions result from the unique artistic sensibilities and imaginations of selected Māpura artists”. (Māpura, 2022b)  

As I walked into the gallery my eye was immediately drawn by the impact of the large cityscape work by Falefatu Enari. I had seen his work before, but in the larger scale the vibrant colours of blues and purples, pinks and greens, with highlights in gold in The Houses really stood out – a stylised urban landscape drawn in coloured Sharpies on paper, recalling impressions of Sydney that he thinks he recalls from a very young age.

The abstracted urban scene appears again in paintings by Madeleine Wilson, Kerry Deane and Colin Harris. Street in Winter is typical of Madeleine’s work, using bold blocks of colour with black outlines, inspired by her love of Van Gogh. Kerry’s Urban Dischord presents an imagined, indeed somewhat discordant, urban scene with the buildings at different and often jarring angles, creating an almost Keith Haring-esque abstracted pattern over the base of solid colours. In his untitled work Colin uses a combination of various layers in paint and ink and a method of carving into the wooden panel to create a work with a captivating busyness. White line drawing suggests toi whakairo and woodcut-like carved stylised faces and designs reveal themselves subtly.

Ululau Ama demonstrates the continuation of his exploration of form and abstraction, and the sensory experience of painting (Segedin, 2021) in My Pathway. Ululau’s work is complex and compelling, his thick painterly dabs of colour create a flat abstraction at first glance, yet on closer inspection his ‘pathway’ through a garden seems to emerge. The acknowledgement that he received in this year’s Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards, where he won the Pacific Toa Award for the contribution of a Pasifika artist with the lived experience of disability, is well-deserved (Creative New Zealand, 2022).

In Lungs Nunu Ama’s geometric shapes work in with each other creating patterns that trick the eye – triangles are arranged to create 3D shapes, their colours recalling those used in siapo. Initially to me the patterns in her ‘lungs’ look abstracted, but perhaps they hint at the bronchioles. As I get drawn in, I start to see other shapes, birdlike or of the sea. This is a complex work of seemingly conflicting patterns and forms that blend seamlessly together with, as the artist suggests, “a surprising and harmonious connectivity between shape, line and colour” (Pah Homestead, 2022b).

The use of strong bright acrylic colours is evident in many of the works in this exhibition. Halina Janiszewska’s Vitality draws the eye in with her use of acrylic, chalk and ink, applied with brushes and pens. She explains that her choice of colours is based on her mood and that she prefers uplifting ones (Pah Homestead, 2022), which they certainly are. Matthew Allerby’s May 21, in an intriguing combo of Sharpie and chalk, is an engaging abstract work recalling feathers, or perhaps falling water. And Hugh Hindle’s Orange Lines is a bold bright work featuring his organic fluid mark-making in different coloured pastels, echoing “his love of movement, interaction and expansive thinking” (Pah Homestead, 2022b).

A darker palette is adopted in two of the works. There is a hint of Ralph Hotere in Matthew Tucker’s Lost in Art & Music & Maths. A lighter centred rectangular block looms out of the dark background that is built up with charcoal and pastel. Akhil Parpudi’s Untitled Blue & Purple is a mixed-media work in various shades of blue, which can’t help but make one think of Yves Klein’s textured blue works.

Lastly, Sarah Holten, with no autonomous use of her hands, uses her whole body to move a head pointer to create her paintings in acrylic and ink. The result is a range of harmonious marks with a strong suggestion of Asian calligraphy. Art Simone, in ephemeral background greys and reds, with strong blue and black lines in the foreground, has a beautiful balance and calm sensibility.

The exhibition runs from 6 to 30 October 2022 at The Pah Homestead, 72 Hillsborough Rd, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.