Lisa Reihana
Lisa Reihana
Lisa Reihana is an internationally renowned Maori artist from Ngapuhi, Ngati Hine and Ngai Tu. She also has Jewish ancestry through her grandmother. Reihana is playing a leading role in the development of image-based and multi media art in Aotearoa.
Living as she does within a bicultural and contemporary New Zealand, Lisa Reihana's photographic, screen-based and often cinematically-scaled art work draws upon and finds new expression for her indigenous and multi-cultural identity. Reihana's artwork extends the conventions of lens-based art practices in innovative ways that experiment with her chosen medium and creates new expressions of indigenous culture and place.
In this interview with the artist, Lisa reflects on the importance of her maternal 'line', and the women that have shaped her sensibility and language as a creative person, including that of her Jewish grandmother. Her art practice is a living expression of her faith in the legacy and power of kinship, often drawing on her friends and family as models for her photographic and moving image works. Lisa speaks here about her ongoing work from 2001, Digital Marae and Rangimarie Last Dance, a sculptural installation commissioned for the foyer of the Q Theatre, Auckland. She reflects upon the women, friends and family who constellate her artistic life, past and present.
Reihana, in more recent times, is well known for her large-scale video installation, ‘in Pursuit of Venus [infected]’ The work is a reinterpretation of Joseph Dufour’s early nineteenth-century scenic wallpaper ‘Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. In Reihana’s digital version, first shown at the 2017 Venice Biennale, the panorama shows Captain James Cook and his men meeting those they encountered on landing in the Pacific. Different iterations of the work have since been presented in galleries and museums in Australia, Europe and North America.
Reihana’s art is often large scale, multi disciplinary and reflects Māori and Pacifica themes
Lisa Reihana stands by her famous video installation ‘in Pursuit of Venus [infected]’. The work was first shown at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
From the Ihi collection. A series featuring Papatūānuku (earth mother) is a retelling of the Māori creation story. Tane pushes his sky father and earth mother apart. Bright light fills the void as a result.
Lisa Reihana exhibits in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Sydney and her work has been featured in exhibitions in the US, France, New Caledonia, Malaysia, Germany and Australia. Her work is held in collections at Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, Staatlich Museen of Berlin in Germany and Susan O'Connor Foundation in Texas, USA.
Over the past two decades Reihana has emerged as one of the leading artists in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Originally part of the Jewish On-line Museum (edited).