Te Kura Manu
Ioane Ioane came to Wharepuke in July/August 2021 to build and install Te Kura Manu, representation of an ancient moa. The sculpture is constructed from found natural materials fixed around a metal framework. It is attached to the live bamboo that makes up the moa’s ‘legs’. Ioane intends that his moa is partially hidden so visitors ‘discover’ her as she grazes in the bamboo. A ritual blessing was performed to open the sculpture to the public.
Ioane Ioane’s multidisciplinary practice acknowledges the spiritual and transitional nature of va (space between in Samoan). Ioane completed a Bachelor of Fine Art from Elam School of Fine Art, University of Auckland in 1985. In 1996 Ioane, was the finalist for the Saatchi and Saatchi Art Awards and in 2005 he was awarded the Creative New Zealand Prize for Innovation and Excellence Art Award.
As well as receiving a number of public commissions, his work belongs in several private and public collections including the Cambridge Museum of Anthropology, England, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, Tijibou Cultural Centre Noumea.
Based in Auckland, Ioane’s multidiscipline practice involves sculpture, painting, installation, and ritual performance and often acknowledges the spiritual and transitional nature of space (the va) as a place of transformation-birth and becoming. Ioane has commented,
“Sacred spaces are not necessarily a church, but it’s a place where one likes to be in, a place of affirmation. Auckland Art Gallery Curator Ron Brownson writes, Ioane’s attitude to sculptural process is cosmological – his carvings bind present reality with a representation of the past..
