AYESHA GREEN

Ayesha Green (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu) examines Aotearoa New Zealand’s landscapes of power and national identity. Flattened colour and form, economy of line and careful patterning lend Green’s large, figurative paintings a deceptive simplicity that belie their themes. Following a Master of Fine Arts from Elam in 2013, Green completed a Museums and Cultural Heritage diploma which provided a unique perspective for her practice. Her works consider colonial narratives and predatory museum practices in contrast with lived experience and traditional Māori ways of understanding and preserving cultural memory. Many are deeply personal and underpinned by whanaungatanga, a philosophy of kinship and collective responsibility. Together with paintings of colonial figures and museological collections are portraits of Green’s family and friends. Green recently won the National Contemporary Art Award (2019) and The Arts Foundation Springboard award (2020). Kate Mullins

Lives in: Ōtepoti/Dunedin Dealer: Jhana Millers Gallery, Wellington

Price range: $1800 – $12,000 Exhibitions: Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, December 2020 to May 2021; Wrapped up in Clouds, Dunedin Public Art Gallery until 29 Nov 2020

Work illustrated:

All of my lovers are immigrants (smooth my pillow) 2020, (detail of diptych), acrylic on canvas, two panels, each 2700 x 2000mm