Through a collection of intuitive landscape paintings, multi-disciplinary artist Dr Leonie Ngahuia Mansbridge (Ngāti Maniapoto) explores her connection to whenua as intertwined with her own whakapapa. Within a suite of found ornate frames, she incorporates exuberant colours and layered compositions to present abstract interpretations of the land that she calls home in both Aotearoa and Australia.
In her new body of work, Dr Mansbridge reframes tropes from classical Western painting genres that she reclaims for deeply personal storytelling, creating assemblages of place and home. Brought together with a distinct iconography, Mā te horo nuku ka tūrangawaewae ai koe, To stand in place of the landscape, explores how whenua assumes an awareness of belonging for Māori in spirituality and identity, from near and afar.
