Jasmin Pitts
Ravenswood School for Girls
Tautangata (without identity)
Printmaking
Gesso on wooden blocks, ink/paint
Growing up within an Anglo-Saxon home, unexposed to her Polynesian ancestry, my Mother constructed her identity from her adopted world. Her journey to Australia and the establishment of her own family gave her a sense of confidence to explore the truth around her heritage. This is represented in my body of work through my use of Tukutuku panelling, a distinctive Mãori artform. The symbolic patterns of Pãtiki and Niho-Taniwha ‘emerge’ from the landscapes to represent the cultural background that sits beneath my Mother’s identity, and consequently my own.