28 May — 16 August 2026
Opening Event: Thursday 28 May • 5:30 - 7:30PM
Peata Larkin:
Silent Kōrero
Silent Kōrero is conceived as a gathering - a quiet hui of conversations that have unfolded in Peata Larkin’s studio over the past two decades. It brings together works created across time, uniting the past to the present. Each artwork carries the memory of the one before it, where the symbolism of tukutuku, tāniko and raranga operate as a personal and collective visual language and acts of reclamation. They embody knowledge and genealogy, and embrace the rhythms of the artist’s tūpuna, who wove, bound, and carved before her.
Peata Larkin, Silent Kōrero, 2026 (detail). Acrylic on embroidered silk, 1200mm x 1200mm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Te Ao Māori resides at the heart of Peata Larkin’s practice, yet she also paints with an awareness of painting’s long lineage. Studies at Elam School of Fine Arts (University of Auckland) heightened this understanding. Influences such as the spatial ruptures of Lucio Fontana, the optical dynamism and energy of Bridget Riley, and the restrained discipline of Agnes Martin remain present. These references exist in dialogue with Peata’s whakapapa. Her practice occupies a space between modernist abstraction and ancestral history, between the studio and the wharenui.
Silent Kōrero is deeply personal. Larkin did not grow up within the foundations of Māoritanga and this deep loss was the precipice for her to overcome. Painting became the vessel for reconnecting with her whakapapa - a space for inquiry and healing. Over time, these questions evolved into quiet exchanges. The act of painting became one of listening, where the presence of tūpuna is felt deeply, and where time dissolves into different states of awareness. The works themselves remain as traces of these encounters.
Colour has always held both symbolic and deeply personal significance within Peata’s mahi. Larkin’s I Am Tūhourangi series (2004-2010) acknowledges and honours her Tūhourangi ancestors - Kaitiaki of the Pink and White Terraces. From a distance, the works appear as fields of pink and white Poutama; upon closer inspection, sulphuric greens, blues, and ochres emerge. These hues evoke the Rotomahana landscape and the convergence of these elements - the lake, surrounding flora and geothermal activity.
Since 2018, her paintings on embroidered silk have introduced a new field of exploration. Initially monochromatic, these works gradually included additional hues. Within them, yellow becomes wairua and flow - a pulse or essence of being - while white establishes structure, which the artist refers to as the ‘bones’ or skeletal framework. Blue moves through as the environment: the whenua and atmosphere that surrounds and sustains.
Peata Larkin’s practice operates across a range of scales and diverse materials, from silk to steel, large-scale public artworks to more intimate, domestic works. Earlier this year, Larkin completed a major public artwork: Pekerangi / A Wall of Embrace, which wraps around the Spine wall of the New Zealand International Convention Centre. One of the largest artworks in Australasia, it comprises of over 13,500 ceramic tiles of bespoke colours created by the artist and is approximately 3,360 square metres in size. The artwork honours mana whenua and uplifts Tangata whenua. It describes our native rākau and the constellations that guided the navigation of the great waka to Aotearoa.
The Language of creating, to me is layered. It is Whakapapa, history, materiality, colour, composition and repetition. It is rhythm, memory and communication. Silent Kōrero is my offering, a body of past and present works that speaks through action and vision, that carries generations within it. It holds healing, memory, and return. Creating is my way of expressing that I am here and that I am listening and learning from my tūpuna.
Peata Larkin, 2026
About the artist • Peata Larkin (Te Arawa, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa)
Peata Larkin (b. Rotorua, Aotearoa New Zealand) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland (2004) and completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at RMIT, Melbourne (2008). Larkin’s work operates in a space between binary constructions: Māori/Pākehā, past/present, art/science, matter/spirit – weaving cultures and spheres of knowledge together.
In 2018, Larkin was the recipient of the Kaipara Wallace Arts Trust Award Residency at Altes Spital in Solothurn, Switzerland and awarded the Molly Morpeth Canaday Award in 2006. In 2013, Larkin completed the large-scale commission, Piki Ake_Rise Up, for the ANZ Tower in Auckland’s central business district. Following the success of this project, Larkin has received consistent public and private commissions including Whakakotahi (2019) Park Hyatt, Wynyard Quarter, Te Tī Tūtahi_Tree of single importance, Pātiki_Abundance & Mahuru Sping (2018), Westfield Shopping complex, Newmarket Auckland (2018), Rauhea, Tauranga (2024) along with Pekerangi on the New Zealand International Convention Centre, Auckland (2026). Recent exhibitions include: You Are Here, Two Rooms, Auckland (2025), Kei konei koe, a solo exhibition at Sydney Contemporary, Australia (2025), Tauhere, Auckland Arts Festival, Silo 6, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland (2016). Her work is held in major public and private collections including The Arts House Trust Collection, the Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, The Dowse, Wellington, Rotorua Museum Arts Trust, Pataka Art + Museum, Waikato and Massey Universities, NZ Parliament, Wellington and the Memphis Museum of Fine Arts, USA.
Events & Public Programme
Opening celebration
Thursday, May 28 • 5:30 - 7:30PM