Wellington artist Stevei Houkāmau wins the Kiingi Tūheitia Portraiture Award

A Wellington artist has won this year’s prestigious Kiingi Tūheitia Portraiture Award for her clay and wire work celebrating her whakapapa.

Stevei Houkāmau, who is the inaugural Māori artist in residence at Wellington’s Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, was announced as the winner of the $20,000 award at a ceremony involving the King on Wednesday night at Pipitea Marae.

Houkāmau’s work – Kia Whakatōmuri te haere whakamua – was chosen as the winner from 96 entries and 43 finalist works, one of which was submitted by Houkāmau’s partner.

The winning work, roughly 5.5 metres in length, can be displayed in a myriad of ways, including being hung, coiled or draped onto surfaces and walls. It is a homage to Houkāmau’s wider whakapapa and her great-great-grandmother Hinemaurea.

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Houkāmau described the work as “whakapapa chains”, and its name is based on a whakataukī (Māori proverb) referencing the past, present and future. “Although [the work] is from a Māori perspective, it [explores] a very universal concept of family,” she said.

Houkāmau’s relatives are from Wharekahika on the East Coast north of Gisborne. Hinemaurea lived on that land during the 16th Century, and her whānau’s bloodline is dominant through much of the Tairāwhiti region.

Hinemaurea held great mana, as shown by two marae being named after her. Houkāmau said it was a particularly special to honour one of her ancestors who was a woman.

The work itself resembles a rosary, Buddha beads or a whakapapa stick, and is made up dozens of large, clay “seeds” held up by wire, each roughly the size of a person’s palm.

Each seed was hand carved with patterns, fired and then threaded onto the line – something that signifies a person’s unique genetic makeup, as well as wider whakapapa. At each end of the work is a raukura feather adornment.

Houkāmau said the seed was symbolic when thinking about whakapapa and bloodlines: “It all stems from that idea.”

Born in Porirua, Houkāmau spent a lot of time growing up on the East Coast, where her mother was from. She represented New Zealand for softball for much of her early and adult life, including on the international stage, but returned to Aotearoa from the United States in 2011.

Following a lifelong dream of pursuing tattoo artistry, Houkāmau decided to enrol in a tā moko programme at Toihoukura in Gisborne during the pandemic, and quit her day job. “I realised life was too short to be miserable.”

But at a wānanga held there, Houkāmau instead “fell in love” with uku/clay, and she says she’s never been able to put it down since – having been a full-time artist now for the last three years. “Clay for me has been it.”

Steve Gibbs, one of the award’s judges, said Houkāmau’s winning work was feminine, could be installed many ways, and its flexibility and scale were its strengths. The piece was refreshing, innovative, and reminiscent of a double helix or DNA, Gibbs said.

It was important the judges allowed for an “extension of thinking” with how portraiture was interpreted, as they had done in choosing Houkāmau as the winner, he said.

The award’s runner-up was Ming Ranginui, and the judges also gave honourable mentions to Tia Barrett, Michelle Estall, Tukiri Tini, Bobby Luke and Heramaahina Eketone.

Houkāmau said she would use her winnings to purchase a kiln.

• An exhibition of finalists’ work runs at the NZ Portrait Gallery from May 25 to August 20, and tours nationally thereafter.