When the whenua is your inspiration and your connection with the land deeply ingrained, choosing to leave frenetic Auckland for the tranquillity of Rawene must surely lead to a quieter lifestyle. Not so for contemporary landscape artist Joanne Barrett. Life may be calmer, but it’s as busy as ever for the talented artist, designer and writer!

Words Pip Goldsbury  Photos Helen Bankers

A North Islander born and bred, Joanne Barrett’s whakapapa is Ngāi Tahu in Te Waipounamu, the South Island. However, while she is of Ngāi Tahu descent, the Dannevirke-born and Auckland-raised artist laughs that she is ‘a typical New Zealander’, with ancestry also encompassing Sioux Native Americans, Denmark, pre-WWI German Jews, and Brits from England and Scotland who migrated to New Zealand in the 1800s. Hearing Joanne speak of her mixed heritage is heartening, a message in the value of family, place and belonging.

A product of urban drift, Joanne’s family moved to Auckland in 1961, where Joanne spent her formative years in Titirangi, the Waitākere Ranges at her doorstep and Muriwai Beach the place she and her family would gather kai moana (seafood). Far from a concrete jungle, Joanne’s Auckland  home was a natural haven and her life-long respect for the land had begun.

It wasn’t until Joanne was sent to boarding school in Parnell, where she attended Te Kura O Kuini Wikitoria, the historic Queen Victoria School for Māori girls, that she experienced city life. However, it was also here that she learnt te reo Māori and joined Kapa Haka, ‘the concert party in my day’, she says with a smile and a rueful shake of the head. It was also an era when te reo was taught from the textbook, Te Rangatahi 1, rather than orally. ‘But I guess that’s how it was in the city in the sixties and seventies,’ Joanne says.

Raising her daughters for many years as a solo mum and living in Auckland was a financial challenge. Unable to re-enter the property market for a long time, her debt levels were uncomfortably high when she finally did. However, that was before Joanne became reacquainted with old friend Eru Wano. Today, Eru is Joanne’s partner and together, the pair made the decision to leave Auckland for the idyllic village of Rawene. For Eru, who is Te Hikutu Ngāpuhi, it was a homecoming. Born in Rawene Hospital and raised in the Whirinaki Valley, Eru has returned to his far north roots. For Joanne, it was a place she felt drawn to, somewhere that would offer ‘a quiet lifestyle’. Setting up her art studio and working from home, Joanne concedes that while she no longer battles Auckland traffic, she’s busier than ever!

Inspired by the whenua, Joanne’s art is a powerful celebration of ancestry and place. Using acrylics and mixed media, her art is a representation of whakapapa, not just of people, but of the land – ‘hononga ki te whenua’ (connection to the land). A base layer is formed, a foundation for the carved lines she sculpts into her works using the same tools her father used when he would chisel striking Māori carvings. A humble and traditional man, Joanne wasn’t invited to partake in his carving, but she has vivid memories of sitting with her father as a teenager, his hands running over the completed carvings as he explained to her the meanings and stories of his work.

Today, Joanne’s carved lines are refined. However, she chuckles that they were ‘pretty rugged’ when she first adopted this style, one that today makes her works instantly recognisable as her own. When she is happy with the foundations, conceptualised landscapes are layered over top, Joanne’s works a metaphor for the profundities and relationships of whakapapa and whenua.

With panoramic and inspiring views across the upper Hokianga Harbour from her studio home, Joanne is a prolific artist and exhibits at galleries across Auckland and Northland. In 2023, she was guest artist at The Nelson Suter Art Society member’s Autumn show at The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū.

Joanne has come a long way since her first exhibition in 2006 when the managers of Depot Artspace, Devonport invited her to exhibit. She fondly recalls that first exhibition. ‘There was no theme to my works, they were experimental. It was just what I had, and they sold.’

Ten years later, Joanne co-won her first award with her work Of Ancient Existence, her interpretation of the theme for the awards, ‘Tūrangawaewae – A Sense of Place’. The words, ‘Of ancient existence, the pounamu sits. This is its place, Te Waipounamu’ are inscribed on the art. In 2021 Joanne would go on to win the Titirangi Community Arts Council Emerging Artist Award with Earthed on Night Dew, her interpretation of the theme ‘Reimagining Nature’.

True to form, however, neither piece is for sale. Instead, Joanne has promised both pieces to her daughters, Kararaina and Georgie, painterly and precious gifts demonstrating who they are and where they belong.

An artist with a story to tell, Joanne is grounded and warm, a woman of wairua with aroha for the land and her people, all of them.