Michael Parekōwhai

Name
Michael Parekōwhai
Iwi/Ethnicity
Ngāti Whakarongo/Māori
Ngāriki Rotoawe/Māori
Date of birth
13 May 1968
Place of birth
Porirua/Wellington (region)/New Zealand
Gender
Male
Biography
Born in Porirua, Michael Parekōwhai is one of New Zealand’s most important contemporary artists. He came to prominence in 1990, exhibited alongside a new generation of Māori artists who challenged ideas of Māori art and culture.

Images of camaraderie, tools for learning and music are reoccurring motifs in Parekōwhai’s work. He makes popular culture, art history and the everyday complex through a playful layering of signifiers.

In 2001, Parekōwhai was given an Arts Foundation Laureate Award, and a major survey of his work, *The Promised Land*, was staged at GOMA, Brisbane, in 2015.