Kauri Hawkins
KAURI HAWKINS
Artist Kauri Hawkins at St Paul St Gallery, AUT, during ‘COMMONER’, Auckland, 2020, IMG X courtesy of Sam Hartnett
About the artist
Kauri Hawkins is a young emerging contemporary Māori artist who has recently graduated from Massey University’s School of Fine Arts in Wellington. Receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2017, Kauri has shown throughout the Wellington region and interna6onally at the first Hobiennale in Hobart Tasmania, November 2017. Kauri is from Muriwai, Turanganui-a-Kiwa and has tribal affiliations to Ngai Tamanuhiri and Ngati Porou, Rongowhakaata and Ngati Pahauwera. He also descends from the Island of Aitutaki in the Cook Islands.
Kauri is a sculptor, painter, film maker and performance artist whose work comments on contemporary New Zealand issues through a Māori lense. He works with materials as diverse as road signs, basketball jerseys, cigarettes and hi-viz, challenging these objects’ cultural significance as a means or self-reflection and expression.
Hawkins has exhibited in galleries throughout New Zealand alongside many leading artists in New Zealand such as Prof. Robert Jahnke, Ngatai Taepa, Robyn Kahukiwa, John Walsh and many others. His carved kauri (native timber) sculpture ‘Pou Whenua’ featured at the Waiheke Sculpture on the Gulf, 2019, is now part of the Wallace Arts Trust Collection and many significant private collections in Aotearoa New Zealand and Sydney, Australia.
Kauri was born in Palmerston North in 1995 and brought up in Turanganui-a-kiwa Gisborne. He currently lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand. His exhibition ‘Blue vs Red’ was his first solo with the Gisborne Gallery PAULNACHE.
Available works
