Margaret Aull is a New Zealand painter, art manager, and curator. She works in mixed media using canvas, installations and sculpture to contribute to and comment on Māori and Pacific artistic discourse. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, showcasing work at the Casablanca Biennale, Morocco in 2018. Along with her own art practice she is an advocate for Māori arts, serving as an advisor on Te Atinga Māori Visual Arts Board,

Creative New Zealand The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand) is the national arts development agency of the New Zealand government established in 1963. It invests in artists and arts organisations, offering capability building programmes a ...

, Hamilton City Council Arts Advisory Forum and Creative Waikato's Māori Arts Advisory Group.

Biography

Aull studied Māori and Pacific arts at

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa Te Wānanga o Aotearoa is a Māori people, Māori university and tertiary education provider with over 80 campuses throughout New Zealand. The indigenous-led organisation works towards "whānau transformation through education" including the r ...

. In 2008 she completed her Bachelor of Media Arts at

Waikato Institute of Technology The Waikato Institute of Technology, also known as Wintec, is an institute of technology based in New Zealand's Waikato region. It was established in 1968 as the Waikato Technical Institute after the split of the Hamilton Technical College. Orig ...

. For her Masters she studied at

Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design Whitecliffe College is a private training establishment in New Zealand. Whitecliffe College was established as a fine arts, design and fashion school in Auckland by artist Greg Whitecliffe and Michele Whitecliffe in 1983. New Zealand educato ...

. Her thesis investigated "the notion of tapu/tabu (sacredness) in relation to objects as visual representations of ancestors and gods." Her first solo exhibition in 2008 was titled ''Na Kena Yali'' and was held at the Chartwell Gallery in

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

. She has produced two further solo exhibitions in 2013 and 2014. Her second solo exhibition was titled ''Concealed Ancestors'' and was shown at Papakura Art Gallery. Her third was held at OREXART in Auckland. In 2017 she exhibited alongside fellow artist-curator Nigel Borell in their joint exhibition ''Karanga Hokianga'' which was shown at Village Arts Gallery,

Hokianga The Hokianga is an area surrounding the Hokianga Harbour, also known as the Hokianga River, a long Estuary, estuarine drowned valley on the west coast in the north of the North Island of New Zealand. The original name, still used by local Mā ...

. In 2018 she exhibited her work in a show called “A Maternal Lens” which was held at Casablanca Biennale, Morocco. This exhibition was curated by Ema Tavola and also included the works of Julia Mage’au Gray, Leilani Kake, Kolokesa Māhina-Tuai and Vaimaila Urale. Her work in this exhibition was titled '''Tai Aroha and was made from

Pāua Pāua is the Māori name given to four New Zealand species of large edible sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs which belong to the family Haliotidae (in which there is only one genus, ''Haliotis''). It is known in the United States and Aust ...

. The title references a waiata that describes love like a tide that ebbs and flows. Aull describes it as "when one tide is out, the other is full; it is a synthesising relationship of how I acknowledge the two cultural foundations as a body of water." Aull was appointed to Te Ātinga in 2016, a contemporary Māori visual arts committee. As part of this committee she serves as an advocate for Māori artists. She is also part of The Veiqia Project, a creative research project investigating the practice of

Veiqia ''Veiqia'' (), or ''Weniqia'', is a female tattooing practice in Fiji. The term refers to both the practice and to the tattoos. Women or adolescent girls who have reached puberty may be tattooed in the groin and buttocks area by older female ta ...

that was founded in 2015. The work of the Veiqia Project includes shared research, public events and exhibitions. One of these exhibitions was ''iLakolako ni weniqia: a Veiquia project'' which was shown at the Physics Room in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

. Aull is of

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

(

Te Rarawa Te Rarawa is a Māori iwi of Northland, New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New ...

, Tūwharetoa) and

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

an descent.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aull, Margaret New Zealand Māori artists Te Rarawa people Ngāti Tūwharetoa people Fijian artists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)