Niki Hastings-McFall
"Drawing on the traditions of Pacific adornment, Hastings-McFall has created her own unique art practice that explores what it means to be a New Zealander of Pacific Island descent living in the twenty-first century."
excerpt In Flyte catalogue Helen Kedgley- director Pataka Art + Museum
Niki Hastings-McFall was born and raised in Titirangi, West
Auckland, she was educated at Auckland Girl's Grammar, Auckland
University and Manukau School of Visual Arts and has a Bachelor of
Visual arts and a tertiary teaching diploma.
Niki Hastings-McFall has exhibited extensively throughout New
Zealand and overseas since 1992 and her work is held in public and
private collections nationally and internationally, including the
Chartwell Trust, British Museum, GOMA,Museum of
Volkekund-Germany,Tjibaou Centre- Noumea,Museum of NZ- Te Papa
Tongarewa, University of Auckland, Victoria University, Pacific
Notion,Macy Gallery New York & Sydney College Arts 2001-
Whitespace (formerly Pacific Artspace); Melbourne Artfair 2000-
Whitespace (formerly Pacific Artspace);and many others.
"Niki Hastings-McFall - like her surname her art reflects a
juxtapositioning and hyphenation of her Palagi and Samoan
heritages, a binary that in practice is intimately entwined and
interrelated.Her art practice, which developed from the early
1990s, addressed and continues to explore a number of key issues
relevant to the discourse of a then emerging contemporary Pacific
art practice in Aotearoa/New Zealand. She now takes her place
as a key figure in the contemporary Pacific art scene both locally
and internationally. Her work has been exhibited in defining
exhibitions including Bottled Ocean, Latitudes (France), Paradise
Now? (USA) and Pasifika Styles (UK). These exhibitions have
helped to create a wider framework in the conceptualising of
contemporary Pacific creative expression, clearly locating
Aotearoa/New Zealand within the Pacific as well as in an
international context. Much of Hastings-McFall's work has
been discussed in terms of cultural identity, an exploration of her
identity, simultaneously reflecting on and referring to Pacific
cross-cultural histories and colonial legacies. Her art practice is
much broader though, for the dynamics of identity resonate in more
complex multi-faceted ways."
Dr Caroline Vercoe 'Danse catalogue'
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