Artist Profile: Rua Paul

Rua Paul

Paul is a highly respected Maori artist with more than 30 years experience in carving, sculpture and painting

His carvings can be seen in meeting houses, including five major meeting house projects in Auckalnd, hospitals and public places throughout New Zealand and in the Tahiti Museum of Art.

Paul has worked throughout the Pacific as a carverand studied traditional forms of carving, canoe making and early navigation.

His apprenticeship began under Paki Harrison, a leader in his own generation of Maori art and a leading expert in carving.

Paul first presented the exhibition “The Journey” in Christchurch in 2007 where more than half the pieces sold on opening night.

The exhibition was acclaimed as ground-breaking, ambitious and “a sign of maturity in Maoridom”.

His second exhibition, “The Journey and the Arrival” continoes to exploration of the colonisation of New Zealand first by Polynesioans, then by Europeans.