16 May 2021

Tawhai Rickard reinvents Maori superheroes

From Standing Room Only, 12:35 pm on 16 May 2021

Two Māori superheroes - based on the Batman and Robin characters - are placed in different moments in Aotearoa's history in a new series of work by Tauranga-based visual artist Tawhai Rickard  of Ngati Porou.   

His exhibition at Tauranga Art Gallery is called The Misadventures of Te Kuri

Tawhai features them in both paintings and sculptural works.  The paintings include the Batman figure Te Kuri,riding in a waka, or conversing and eating cucumber sandwiches with Lord George Grey 

For the sculptures he's repainted actual Batman and Robin figures from the 1960s and put them in scenes, including one with the pair being suspended upside down over a giant teapot!

Tawhai Rickard explains to Lynn Freeman how he came to combine American pop culture and Māoridom.

The misadventures of Te Kuri opens at Tauranga Art Gallery on the 22nd of May.