:waste not want not
Gisborne based artist Lina
Marsh is a collector of bits and pieces,
op- shop treasures, memories and stories. She
has exhibited extensively both nationally and
internationally; her most recent works are
currently touring Germany.
Of Niuean and Maori descent, Lina is
a graduate of Auckland���s Whitecliffe
College of Art and Design. Her work fuses
traditional art-making techniques and
handcrafts to create works that are associated
with migration, mixed cultural identity
and contemporary culture. Printmaking,
embroidery and crochet are dominant
techniques in her work. However, papermache, textiles and painting have also
contributed to her diverse art making
practice. The end results are objects that tell
personal and universal stories.
In her works ���Taha, Tahi, One���, Lina has
taken the stories of her Grandmother, her
mother and herself, to explore assimilation
and loss of identity. Created for the
Canterbury Museum, these mixed media
paper-mache busts eventually travelled to
Niue to be part of the first Niuean Art and
Culture Festival in 2009. Niu Tauevihi of
the Premier���s Department described them
108 | www. h e rma gaz i n e . c o. n z
as being ���disturbingly thought provoking as
our cultural heritage is challenged with each
passing generation���.
State housing is also a consistent theme in
Lina���s work. In her 2009 solo exhibition
titled ���Introduced and Naturalized���, of the 49
carefully embroidered works, she created an
installation of 21 state houses exploring issues
of dependency, urbanisation and of being
���state owned���. ���I began to make comparisons
between the forests and eco systems of Niue
and the people who have left this island to
live in New Zealand, only to arrive and be
introduced and settle into a false since of
security.��� Lina continued this theme to create
works titled LYNFIELD 267 for the 2010
show Circular.
Lina is currently working toward creating
Gisborne���s first Pacific art exhibition titled
���TO BE PACIFIC���. Of this show she says,
���We have a growing Pacific Island population
in Gisborne and it���s a chance for artists to
show their very best in contemporary art
making and share their stories, both past
and present.��� The show will run from 20th
September through to the 24th of November
2013 at the Tairawhiti Museum of Art and
Culture.
