Koru And Kowhaiwhai

The koru, also known as Pitau, is a curve with a bulb at the end, a shape used among many cultures but when rotated and reflected in certain repetitive patterns it forms the distinctly Maori Kowhaiwhai scroll

Gordon Walters is now regarded as one of New Zealand’s most significant modern artists due to his development hard-edged geometrical abstraction. Seeking out a diversion from New Zealand’s milieu of naturalism, Walters travelled to Europe in 1950 where he observed the reductionist techniques of distillation by artists such as Piet Mondrian and Victor Vasarely. Returning to New Zealand, he applied this knowledge to the koru motif, which Theo Schoon had earlier introduced to him. The koru was particularly interesting to Walters because it is a motif that is natural, often likened in form to a curling pacific wave or fern frond, yet it is completely abstract . Walters thoroughly investigated the kowhaiwhai, including looking at meeting houses, in particular Te Hau Ki Turanga, held by the national museum, to study traditional images. Despite such study of traditional forms, Walters approach to koru and kowhaiwhai was very different to Schoon’s noting in later years that he used a “koru-like form” not a “reproduction of the koru used in Maori kowhaiwhai” . Wanting to make something new rather than recreate the past in the way Schoon was , Walters created many studies such as ‘Untitled’, 1960, through which he analysed and transformed the koru into a geometricised form by straightening the curving line into a horizontal bar and reducing the bulb to more precise circle. His first work in the so-called ‘Koru’ Series is Painting, 1964, (later known as Te Whiti) is characteristic of the series in which Walters interlocks the koru-like bars across the canvas in two contrasting colours in such a way that creates an ambiguity between figure and ground reminiscent of Op Art . In addition, Walters further distanced his works from traditional koru and kowhaiwhai by using instruments such as compasses and rulers in conjunction with flat brushwork gives his works a more mechanical look than traditional kowhaiwhai.

Some topics in this essay:
Maori Kowhaiwhai, Walters Schoon, Europeans Maori, Op Art, Walters Maori, Francis Pound, Walters McCahon, Klee Schoon, Rangiho Panoho, North Otago, koru kowhaiwhai, traditional kowhaiwhai, maori culture, rock art, kowhaiwhai painting, traditional kowhaiwhai painting, theo schoon, maori art, gordon walters, maori rock, pakeha artists, red white black, maori rock art, traditional maori arts, painting tattooing carving,