Life in Forms: Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury w/ Hester Rowan: 30th May, 2025

Life in Forms is a survey exhibition of Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury’s practice, currently showing at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery. It is the first solo exhibition of Yearbury’s work in a public art gallery. 

Yearbury is considered a leading practitioner in Māori modernist art and was one of the first Māori artists to introduce Māori mythology into contemporary art. Her work is characterised by a bold and illustrative style, of which she is most renowned for her incised wooden panels featuring figures from Māori whakapapa narratives.

She was one of the first Māori women to attend the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, where she worked later as a tutor too. 

Sofia had a kōrero with curator Hester Rowan about Yearbury’s life, practice, and legacy as well as Hester’s curatorial process for putting together Life in Forms