Tracey Tawhiao
New Zealand artist (born 1967)
Tracey Tawhiao (born 1967) is a New Zealand artist. Her ancestry can be traced to Ngāi Te Rangi, Whakatohea, Tuwharetoa.
Life
Tawhiao is a prolific artist with a wide range of creative expression including poetry, painting, performance and film making. She is well known for using newspaper as the basis of her practise, obscuring passages of text with block colours and Māori symbols and motifs, whilst highlighting short headlines or individual words. Tawhiao's artistic practise arose from time spent with her grandparents at their Matakana Island home. The walls were covered in newspapers and Tawhiao's idea to brighten the place up was to apply symbols and images directly to the walls. This close connection to the text highlighted to her the negativity implicit in the headlines.
Education
Tawhiao graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) Classical Studies Major; Otago University, Dunedin and also a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) Otago University and Auckland University. Master of Philosophy (MPhil) Auckland University of Technology (AUT)
Works
Tawhiao was asked to create work to enhance the exterior of the Hotel Britomart whilst under construction. This was the first to feature in the series 'Works on Paper'.
The public source identifies “Tracey Tawhiao” as new Zealand artist (born 1967). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tracey, Tawhiao and Zealand.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21461912. VIAF identifies the subject as 282522010. The Library of Congress control number is no2026012290. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tracey Tawhiao” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.