Pacific Edge Connections

Works by contemporary Maori artists including Vicky Lee Hipora Stark, Roi Toia (above, Pakake – Whale), Sandy Adsett, Fred Graham, and Robert Jahnke featured in the Kiwa Pacific Connections: Maori Art from Aotearoa exhibition held in Vancouver at the Spirit Wrestler Gallery. The show was part of an overwhelmingly successful exchange exploring possible links between the art and culture of Canada’s Northwest Coast native Indians and other Pacific ethnic groups. The reviewer praises Jahnke’s “witty and subversive” triptych, You too can be a Maori, featuring a Maori elder with traditional moko flanked by images of Robbie Williams and Mike Tyson sporting their respective “neo-tribal tattoos. An eloquent metaphor for the paradox of traditional culture in the contemporary world”.