Parekohai Whakamoe

Born 1969, Dunedin, New Zealand. She is of Maori (Tuhoe tribe) and European descent. She has lived and worked in Melbourne since 1998. Whakamoe’s solo exhibitions include Love is a Battlefield at Kiosk, Christchurch, New Zealand,Storing Up, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Transformers, and The Spa at Gertrude Contemporary. She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Studio Artists 2001 at Gertrude, Paintings are Ace at Linden gallery, Melbourne, Celebrating Women’s Suffrage, New Zealand touring exhibition, andKohio ko taikaka Anake- Artists Construct New Directions, at The National Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand Whakamoe’s practice traverses the mediums of sculpture, installation and screen-based works. One of the core concerns of Whakamoe’s work is the relationship between identity and place, be it actual or mythical. These places become sites for exploring the self in terms of history, physicality and mythology.

Parekohai Whakamoe was born in Pakeha with Maori parents. They exposed her to Traditional Maori Art with its highly stylized features and fantastic imagery and also to contemporary European and American Art with it’s naturalism, representational art and divergent styles. Parekohai has said that: ‘like many New Zealander’s land and a sense of isolation has featured highly in my work.’ Parekohai moved to Melbourne in 1998 and exhibited sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, digital animation and video in a number of artist-run and public galleries. She undertook a 2-year studio residency at Gertrude.

In 2002 Parekohai completed an MA in sculpture, painting and video at the Victorian College of the Arts.