Artist and architect Raukura Turei began exhibiting in 2016, coming into prominence with The Earth Looks Upon Us: Ko Papatūānuku te matua o te tangata, curated by Tina Barton at Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Wellington, in 2018. For this exhibition, Turei installed Te poho o Hine-Ruhi (2018), using clay, acrylic, and water on digital print. Measuring a majestic 10 × 4m, the work signaled her deep commitment to exploring whenua (earth pigment), while also affirming that working at an immense scale is very much her element.
Te Ara Uwha, the path of the sacred feminine, consists of four female Māori deities represented across several whenua paintings. Drawing from Te Ao Māori – the Māori world and worldview – Turei invokes the significance, mana (prestige), and power of the female deity to bring her works into being. Central to this cosmology is the separation of Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother and paramount matriarchal deity, from her lover Ranginui, the celestial, patriarchal deity. From this separation emerged Te Ao Mārama, the world of light – a creation story shared across many Oceanic cultures as the beginning of human existence.
Turei writes, “Māori have a saying, ‘ko au te whenua, ko te whenua ko au’ – ‘I am the land and the land is me.’ We trace our genealogy back to Papatūānuku, Earth Mother, and Ranginui, Sky Father, and the myriad children who came forth to embody every element of the natural world, and whose essence is captured in every part of our being, our DNA.” Kurawaka, Papatūānuku’s pubic region and the place where the first woman was created, is a sacred red earth known as kōkōwai. In Turei’s installation, four deities are represented by large-scale paintings supported by fine pou [vertical posts]. These works embody Papatūānuku/ Kurawaka; Hineahuone, the first woman formed from the red earth of Kurawaka; Hinetītama, daughter of Hineahuone, who later transitions into Hine-nui-te-pō, the deity of death and guardian of the underworld.
When viewed or imagined from above, the installation reveals the Pouhine design – a weaving pattern representing the inversion of the Poutama, a traditionally masculine form. Pouhine is a vessel-like structure honoring the whare tangata, the womb. This structure maps the lineage from light into darkness, from the realm of the living to the spiritual domain, where Hine-nui-te-pō receives her children and guides them to Hawaiki, the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Māori and related Oceanic nations that share this whakapapa [genealogy].