McCahon House Artists In Residence 2021 Announced

McCahon House Trust is delighted to announce three outstanding New Zealand artists, Emily Karaka, Moniek Schrijer and Cora-Allan Wickliffe who have been selected for the 2021 artists’ residency programme. This year the judges were struck by the quality of the applications and the diversity of art practices represented. This, along with a defining sense of how the residency may represent a significant shift in an artist’s work, was reflected in the final selection.

As always the selection process is one the judges consider with great care as they delve deeply into each of the proposals before them and thank each and every applicant for the time and energy invested in their applications.

Emily Karaka’s work is influential as it pivots across generations, with recent exhibitions bringing her renewed voice once again in a dialogue with a younger generation of artists.

Cora-Allan Wickliffe’s work, centred around Hiapo (Niuean barkcloth) impressed the judges for the way it weaves together and embraces history, contemporary thought and personal exploration along with form, representation and symbolic imagery.

Moniek Schriher’s proposal remained in the minds of the judges for its call to push at established boundaries – for experimentation and fluidity, openness and sense-based subjectivity, testing and trialling materiality.

Emily Karaka (in residence February – May 2021)

Emily Karaka is a New Zealand Maori artist of Waikato and Ngapuhi decent (Ngai Tai, Ngati Hine, Ngati Wai, Te Kawerau a Maki, Te Waiohua, Ngati Te Ahi Waru, Tamaoho and Waiohua) was born in 1952 and has lived in and around the Central Auckland area all her life. Megan Tamati-Quennell describes Emily as “an abstract expressionist painter, her work is characterised by its expressive intensity, her use of high-key colour, text, and her gritty address of political issues related to Maori land rights, environmental issues, equity, tino rangatiratanga (Maori sovereignty) and the Treaty of Waitangi. For over five decades Emily has undertaken explorations of Maori marginalisation and dispossession through her painting. Emily has recently made work to be included in Nirin, Sydney’s 22nd Biennale, and is currently working towards a site specific work for upcoming show ‘Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art’ at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

Moniek Schrijer (in residence May – August 2021)

Moniek Schrijer is a contemporary jewellery artist from Te Whanganui-a-Tara who holds a Bachelor of Applied Arts (2012) and a Post-Graduate Diploma from Whitireia New Zealand’s Facility of Art (2013). Schrijer’s practice is characterised by the skillful adaptation and alteration of materials collected largely from second hand and recycled sources using a variety of traditional and unconventional jewellery techniques that allow for her pieces to move between the jewel and the object, the flat plane and the 3rd dimension. Her work is distinct and ingenious, weaving together wry humour, critical reflexivity and technical originality. In 2016 Schrijer was awarded a prestigious Herbert Hofmann Preis during Schmuck in München for her piece ‘tablet of’ and was Asia NZ Foundation/Wellington City Council artist in residence in Xiamen, China (2017). Her work is held in significant private and public collections in New Zealand and abroad.

Cora-Allan Wickliffe (in residence September – December 2021)

Cora-Allan Wickliffe is a multidisciplinary artist of Māori and Niue descent, originally from Waitakere, Auckland. She returned to Aotearoa in 2016 after working at the Walter Phillips Art Gallery in Banff, Canada. In 2013 she completed her Masters in Visual Art and Design from AUT, also receiving an AUT Postgraduate Deans award for her research and excellence. In recent years she has revived the art form of Hiapo (Niuean Barkcloth) and has been working towards passing down this skill, which has not been practiced since the early 1900’s. Over the last 15 years Cora-Allan has worked in the creative industry as a curator, preparator, photographer, artist and educator. She is currently the curator and exhibitions manager at Corban Estate Arts Centre, a founding member of BC COLLECTIVE and is the only known maker of Hiapo.

During their residency, located in the purpose built studio and accommodation adjacent to

McCahon House Museum in Titirangi, the artists will engage with local community and artists through a public programme that includes studio visits, talks and Gate Dinners. Each artist will contribute a work to the McCahon House Artists Residency collection and gift work for fundraising purposes.

The residencies are supported through investment funding from Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa. The Trust also receives generous support from several organisations and philanthropists including: The Trusts Community Foundation, Foundation North and Waitākere Ranges Local Board.

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