Overview
Lonnie Hutchinson is a leading Māori and Pacific artist whose work across a range of media is inspired by indigenous histories, women’s histories and craft practice.
The interplay of form, light and shadow are key ingredients in Lonnie Hutchinson's art. Working across sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, film and performance, she uses the language of contemporary art to articulate a Polynesian worldview telling the stories of her ancestors that reflect her Samoan, Māori (Ngāi Tahu), Scottish and English heritage.
Her distinctive cut-out forms - made in her signature heavy black builders paper, vintage wallpaper, steel or aluminium - often incorporate Maori motifs such as kōwhawhai and koru patterns. In their play with shadow, which becomes part of the work, a non-materiality is captured. This is inherent in the Samoan notion of 'va' and Māori ‘whakapapa’ which Hutchinson has said is central to her practice. Va refers to the space between places, things and people, and connections across time. “Whakapapa accounts for the way in which the earth, sky, oceans, rivers, elements, minerals, plants, animals and all people have been created. All things are linked through whakapapa, as well as having their individual place in the world. Ultimately, it is whakapapa that connects people to each other, to their ancestors, to the land, to the oceans and the universe”
Political and spiritual, the work engages with issues of culture, gender and sexuality to generate conversations that are timeless, current, relevant and accessible.
Bio
Hutchinson, who has been described as a 'trail-blazing' Pacific woman artist, has been exhibiting steadily nationally and internationally for more than 20 years. She has been included in significant international exhibitions such as Paradise Now? : Contemporary Art from the Pacific (2004), Asia Society New York and Pasifika Styles (2006-8), University of Cambridge Museum, that have served to raise awareness of Pacific artists and art in the US and UK. A survey show, with accompanying catalogue, Black Bird: Lonnie Hutchinson 1997 - 2013, was shown in Auckland and Wellington in 2015. and a major solo exhibition was held at Christchurch Art Gallery in 2021. Her work is many significant public collections and she has also produced several major site-specific installations - most prominently for Hamilton Gardens, the Justice Precinct in Christchurch, the Convention Centre in Christchurch and the Britomart in Auckland.
