Otahuhu artist wins $10k prize
When 13-year-old Fahdil Ali started wood carving little did he know it would lead him to a $10,000 prize.
A student at Otahuhu College, he seems like a regular teenager but has many talents.
He plays soccer, carves on wood, and will soon be taking his classmates to Waitangi.
He competed in Our Nation’s Children Art Competition, an initiative of the Waitangi National Trust that aims to educate the next generation to understand the history of New Zealand. The competition was held under the theme: ‘‘What does the Treaty of Waitangi mean to you?’’
Fahdil explains what he wished the artwork to convey.
‘‘It means was how culture spreads over time among different people but still has the same roots,’’ he says.
For this art project, he chose wood as a medium. He first drew his idea on paper, and then decided to carve it on wood in layers. So he started with the tree bark, then the tikis and then the branches.
He says the carving symbolises how Maori first interacted with the land and how their culture evolved over time.
‘‘They might have gone away from the original birthplace, but they have taken their culture with them. The tree connects them all,’’ he says.
It took him two months to complete the entire piece, and he ‘‘worked on it every day after he went home from school’’.
Originally from Fiji, he is already planning his next piece of art -a wood carving of a bodybuilder.
Head of the Art Department at Otahuhu College, Rosemary Theunissen hopes he will join the Whakaaro (Maori carving) course when he’s a senior student because he’s ‘‘a good carver’’.
Notes from the judges at the competition read: ’’we were really impressed with the use of traditional woodcut’’.
They also noted that it had good composition and thought that had gone into the symbolism of the work.
The competition had three winners and each won a trip for their school (costing $10,000 per school) to the Bay of Islands for three nights. Fahdil’s class of 32 students is expected to make this trip.
Our Nation’s Children Art Competition is aimed at Year 9 and 10 students.