Artist collaboration

With Tracey Tawhiao.

Selected Kiwi makers have joined with PPG Paints to create their own bespoke collections. Tracey Tawhiao (Ngāi Te Rangi, Whakatōhea, Ngāti Tūwharetoa), whose work spans painting, poetry, moving image and sculpture, is one of them, and shared with us the stories her palette tells.

“I live in Auckland and work from home [scenes from which are pictured above and overleaf]. For me, home’s a place where you feel welcomed and loved. It’s where I set out to be myself in my work, undaunted by my flaws.

I was born an artist and believe I was awakened by a beautiful telepathic meeting with a fish on the beach. Now, the fish is a central motif in my work, which flows out of me like water coming out of a spring. It’s a spring where I am the water and the water is me.

Nature is the colour wheel of life. There isn’t a set number of hues and new ones are being seen daily by the eye. The colours we use in our homes or work are those we know will create a better environment for us to be in. The shades we see in nature filter into us, then come out in the spaces we need to bring to life.

We can use colour to make manmade objects, like walls, feel more enlivened. I imagine the colours I created for PPG Paints being used like a drink when you’re thirsty — you drink and then you stop when you’ve had enough, knowing there’s a massive supply. Colour’s like that. You go to hues that quench your thirst knowing more are there, so it’s a kind of healthy, wealthy, confident overconsumption.

That’s how to use any colour in an interior environment — with confident overconsumption! I think all colours affect all others, so it’s just a matter of how you’re feeling when you choose your combinations. Listen to your own needs and feelings.

Colour’s like breathing — you don’t focus on it, but without it, you’d die. Colour’s everywhere and we don’t recognise its importance because it’s so abundant, but the second it disappeared, we’d suffer greatly.

Colour’s a friend who always wants to play. It has no prejudice. It’ll hold hands with its opposite so easily. My paintings reflect this colour diversity — a gender-free, multiple-partnered ‘genius’ of life.” >