Bartley & Company Art is delighted to present this significant new exhibition by Cora-Allan Wickliffe. Created during her time at Parehuia, the prestigious McCahon House Artist Residency, late last year, it shows a marked step forward in her practice in terms of scale, the introduction of colour and new iconography, drawing on her Niuean and Māori (Ngāpuhi Tainu) whakapapa.

Histories on Hiapo sees Wickliffe presenting her largest work to date, a four by five metre hiapo (barkcloth painting) dramatically hung in the centre of the gallery. The exhibition also includes paintings on hiapo, Niuean barkcloth made from the Mulberry tree, and a new series of hiapo ‘polaroids’ which in small format capture memories and customary practices drawn from her whakapapa. All the hiapo has been made by Wickliffe as have the multi-coloured whenua paints made from pigments gathered from clay banks around Titirangi and the McCahon House. The mix of hiapo with whenua paint blends, in each work, the artist’s dual heritage.

The large work, Niue and Us, allows visitors to walk around the cloth as if they were at a market show day in the village of Liku in Niue, where her grandparents were born. The hiapo, with its layers of pattern, colour, and texture, records her grandparents journey from Niue to Auckland, The scale allows Wickliffe to expand her visual vocabulary and here we see images of coconut cans, cars, a bus stop and umu pit alongside traditional Hiapo botanical and abstract patterns.

Bark cloth practices have a huge lineage throughout the Pacific as a material that sustains families financially, depicts histories, educates for the future and is a unique adornment used for many formal occasions. Each island nation has its own unique style and aesthetic.

Wickliffe has a Masters in Visual Art and Design from AUT and although early in her career has attracted considerable attention. Her work has been written about in New Zealand’s leading art magazines and she has won several significant awards, residencies and grants. In 2021, she had artist residencies at Te Whare Hera Massey University Wellington, and the prestigious McCahon House, which said she was chosen for the way she “weaves together and embraces history, contemporary thought and personal exploration along with form, representation and symbolic imagery”. Also in 2021 she was the recipient of an Arts Foundation Springboard Award which came with mentoring by leading New Zealand artist Shane Cotton. In 2020 she won the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Award.  She has exhibited in New Zealand, Australia, Niue, England, France and Canada and her work is in public and private collections.

An exhibition of landscape paintings Wickliffe also made during her time at Parehuia is showing at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery until 5 June. The exhibition is accompanied by a monograph of full-page images and essays by art critic and author Lana Lopesi and curator Madeleine Gifford.