One of New Zealand’s most significant and innovative contemporary Māori artists, Ngatai Taepa’s impressive and varied body of work combines indigenous concepts with contemporary expression.

Exploring the contemporary relevance of kōwhaiwhai painting, Taepa has attained an extraordinary level of mastery of kōwhaiwhai’s unique and significant visual language, creating kōwhaiwhai for the twenty-first century. Using western technologies and materials, Taepa’s computer-generated imagery overlays intricate, interlacing kowhaiwhai patterns onto high-gloss, minimalist aesthetic of curved PVC pipes, replicating the curved shape of the heke/rafters in Māori wharenui, and merging traditional Māori patterns with contemporary sculpture and Pop Art.

Ngataiharuru Taepa (born 1976, Upper Hutt, Te Arawa, Te Āti Awa, Pākehā) graduated in 2003 with a Masters degree in Māori Visual Arts from Te Pūtahi-a-Toi at Massey University Palmerston North, where he lectured in Māori Visual Arts from 2002 until 2014. He is Kaihautū, Toi Māori, Director of Māori Arts at Massey University, Wellington, and the Chair of Te Ātinga, the contemporary visual arts committee of Toi Māori Aotearoa. His work is held in many national public collections. With Michel Tuffery, Taepa was commissioned to create artwork for WW1 Remembered: A Light and Sound Show for the opening of Pukeahu War Memorial Park in 2015. Taepa lives and works in Wellington.