Over a year-long process, artists Cora-Allan and Marita Hewitt embarked on a wānanga exchange. Between Kerikeri and Tāmaki Makaurau, the duo began by sending emails, packages and hand-written notes, before embarking on a journey North in Raumati (Summer) season that sparked their artistic collaboration through shared making. Bringing together material fragments, handmade using the surface techniques of Hiapo (Niuean bark cloth) and European cotton and linen rag that each utilise in their individual practices, they worked together through a playful, intuitive process. Each would collage their own responses in turns, guided by growth, customary knowledge, whenua and the sincere practice of sharing taonga.
In Return presents their collaborative suite of mixed-media works, varying in scale and often surprising in their colour and composition. Different material fragments and markings are characteristic of each of the artists’ practices. Cora-Allan’s fine black line depicts flora and fauna motifs from her explorations into traditional Hiapo, nestled between fragments of Marita’s sculptural paper forms that sit out from the surface and are set in a three-dimensional form during the paper-making process. Some pieces hold deeper connections to the artist’s lives; small, slightly darker, sections of hiapo were soaked in the Wellington Harbour during Cora-Allan’s 2021 residency, and the fine painted stripes were taken from lines similar to those on Marita’s young daughter’s comfort blanket.
Symbolising this unique body of work, each of the titles found in the exhibition are reflective of Cora-Allan and Marita’s joint process, being phrases taken from their handwritten and email exchanges over their shared twelve-months. The duo present their journey of shared materials, techniques, inspirations and language between each other, demonstrating the intriguing beauty of what is possible from creative collaboration
