Emily Karaka’s Guide to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Mural by Owen Dippie of treasured Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki artist and Glen Innes local Emily Karaka, 2023

Emily Karaka (Waikato-Ngāpuhi) is a significant contributor to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s creative narrative, known for her expressive and colourful paintings with strong emphasis on Māori land rights and use of text. 

These characteristic elements in her work draw relations with her mentors, Gretchen Albrecht, Colin McCahon, two of the country’s most celebrated artists known for their own contributions to and of the local landscape.

Karaka is recognised as being among the first generation of contemporary Māori artists, developing her style alongside the 1970s 'Mana Wahine' feminist art and Māori protest movements. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 22nd Sydney Biennale, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE and the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2025. 

Emily Karaka, Te Uri o Te Ao, 1995, Oil on canvas 3005 x 3800mm Collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased with the assistance of Reader's Digest New Zealand Limited, 1997

Matariki Ring of Fire is a series, painted following her time as McCahon House Artist in Residence was first exhibited at the nearby Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Art Gallery, depicting the pre-colonial names of the volcanic maunga – mountains – around Tāmaki Makaurau’s isthmus to celebrate Matariki – the Māori new year.

Art Guides World reached out to Karaka inspired by Ruth Buchanan’s statement about the city’s position “amongst a field of 53 volcanoes” making it “uniquely situated to be a potent creative environment.” We are honoured to have Karaka share insights into her home amongst the enduring ancestral maunga.

Image credits: (1) Emily Karaka, Matariki Ring of Fire Installation view at Te Uru Contemporary, 18 June - 18 September 2022, Photo: Sam Hartnett. (2) Emily Karaka, MARAE (Whakakitenga), and MOTU​ (Uenuku dancing with her bracelet of Jewels - the islands) both 2020, Installation view at Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery.

☉ Can you share some of the significant local influences on your work? 

Firstly local artists Philip Clairmont, Tony Fomison and Allen Maddox were significant influences as amazing painters. They influenced me as a painter as well as my remaining friend from the 80's Richard McWhannell and of course my life experiences, including my cultural heritage and work as tribal secretary and co-claimant for the comprehensive Ngai Tai ki Tāmaki Treaty Claim Wai 423 [the iwi / tribe’s Treaty of Waitangi claim that centered on historical land and resources dispossession related to the British Crown's actions in the Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland region]. 

☉ In which ways do you think Tāmaki Makaurau is – or is not – a uniquely potent creative environment?

Traditionally, Tāmaki Makaurau is known as Te Kei o Te Waka o Tainui and Ngai Tai ki Tāmaki the guardians / kaitiaki of the area hence my involvement in environmental concerns and issues after our occupation at Bastion Point [also known as Takaparawhā, a Tāmaki peninsular where nonviolent protesters spent over 500 days from 1977-1978 to bring attention to ongoing land confiscation] which was for all the tribes of Tāmaki. The City, built on a volcanic landscape with two harbours, is a unique and potent environment, and with the political turmoil here and abroad, I'm not short of inspiration to paint from.

☉ What changes do you hope for the next generation of creatives based here? 

I'm concerned about the influence AI will have in the practice of visual arts / painting in particular and concerned about the Atlas agenda and authoritarian influence here, such as what has happened recently with fast track legislation affecting Maori treaty rights, women's wages and low income families. So I'd like change that prevents oppressive mechanisms being implemented by inhumane politicians and governments including global war being superseded by a new world order based solely on humanity and peace for all people.

Emily Karaka, DNA, displayed at Ka Awatea, A New Dawn, Sharjah Art Foundation, Al Mureijah Square, Sharjah, 2024, collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, image courtesy of the artist.