PENNY HOWARD Te Mahurehure – Ngāpuhi
MANA MUSE


30 September – 26 October 2018
Preview: Sunday 30 September, 2pm

Penny’s artworks focus on Identity and many of them on her identity based on the Mana Wahine from her family and their stories. A red thread runs through all her paintings which is I ngā wā o mua (the Māori world view to take the past with us into the future for guidance).

This exhibition; Mana Muse is a series of portraits of contemporary, authentic, inspiring Wahine; leaders in their chosen professions, who advocate and stand up for women's rights today particularly within their fields, which include the arts, poetry, writing, teaching, politics and all are mothers. The Wahine Penny is painting include Anika-Moa, Sia Figiel, Marama Davidson MP and Dr. Selina Tusitala Marsh, who are collaborating with her on how they want to be portrayed.

Many of Penny’s earlier paintings have included women from her ancestral line, these women include her great, great, great grandmother Ngāpuhi Tohunga, Cheifteness Te Kuri O Te Wao, and her maternal Grandmother a registered nurse who grew up with a very independent mother and without her father (because of postwar PTSD) and her partners Grandmother who was a Samoan high titled woman who immigrated to NZ (after her first husband died) to create a better life for herself and her family. All these women were hugely influential in their families as story tellers, calabash breakers, patriarchy challengers, advocates for women's rights including the right to vote and inspirations to their grandchildren.

During the exhibition Penny will host two art workshops, these workshops will focus on turangawaewae around a significant woman in each participants life, this may include objects, cultural patterning, memories and stories told. We will be encouraging parents, grandparents, caregivers to bring their children to participate, view the artwork on display, reflect on the contemporary change making women exhibited and again reflect on and create artworks to take home about influential women in their family. 

Penny Howard graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1995, she has work in the permanent collections of the Wallace Arts Trust, Waitakere City Council, Foundation North, Auckland Events Centre and Auckland University - installed in the Business School, Dept Critical Studies in Education, at the Auckland Family Court and in private collections in China, U.K and Australia.
 



Family Identity Art Workshops
FREE event. All ages welcome.
Sat 6 Oct & Wed 10 Oct, 2pm–4pm

Workshops will focus on turangawaewae around a significant woman in each participants life, this may include objects, cultural patterning, memories and stories told. We will be encouraging parents, grandparents, caregivers to bring their children to participate, view the artwork on display, reflect on the contemporary change making women exhibited and again reflect on and create artworks to take home about influential women in their family.

Mana Muse exhibition captures inspiring wāhine
Te Kāea - Maori Television
Watch here.

Penny Howard's four muses
Standing Room Only, RNZ
Listen here.

Interview with Ryan Bradley
RadioLIVE
Listen here.