Cora-Allan Wickliffe - Flowers from Niue

With Cora-Allan Wickliffe in Wellington for a three-month residency at Massey University, we are pleased to be able to showcase her work in our back gallery.

Using traditional materials from her Hiapo practice, Cora-Allan continues exploring the unique flora and fauna motifs that make up Niuean bark cloth patterns. Through freehand techniques she draws upon remembering the thick landscape of the island as pattern only, reducing each leaf and vine to a monochromatic poem of line.

Cora-Allan is attracting a lot of attention. She won the Pacific Heritage Artist Award in the 2020 Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards, a 2021 McCahon House artist residency and the current issue of Art New Zealand has a feature on her work. In its press release announcing the Award, McCahon House said she was chosen for the way that she "weaves together and embraces history, contemporary thought and personal exploration along with form, representation and symbolic imagery".