A reopened gallery becomes a place of return, connection and celebration as Tauranga’s artists, whānau and whenua fill its revamped spaces.
Toi Tauranga Art Gallery recently reopened its doors after two years. Whānau, artists, kaumātua, cousins, rangatahi and curious passers-by converged on the gallery with an excited energy you only get when a community is genuinely looking forward to something. It felt like a collective return, a gathering of people who had been waiting for this, without fully realising it.
And for the two weeks since, the gallery has done what it is meant to; welcome the people of Tauranga in to reflect on themselves, the whenua and to connect. After closing in 2023, Toi Tauranga Art Gallery underwent a major $9.65m redevelopment as part of Tauranga’s wider Te Manawataki o Te Papa civic transformation. Positioned at the heart of the future precinct, the gallery used the closure to undertake extensive seismic strengthening, reorient the building with a new entrance facing Masonic Park, and introduce a full interior redesign led by Warren and Mahoney Architects with design input from Extended Whānau and inspiration from Tauranga Moana artist Maraea Timutimu.
The upgrade includes new gallery spaces, improved lighting and air systems, a dedicated moving-image room, an object-based gallery, a café, an expanded retail area showcasing local artists, and a new creativity centre for tamariki and young people.
A large public artwork by Maraea Timutiumu sprawls across the front of the building. Created with whenua from Matapihi, near Mt. Maunganui, the colours shift across the wall with the softness of a flowing tide. Timutimu says her whānau whenua is “literally falling into the sea”, and that this artwork too will slowly erode and crack. The work is more than a representation of whenua, it’s whenua in action; a reminder of fragility and responsibility.
Inside, a carved amo by Meihana Te Tawakura from Tamapahore Wharenui greets visitors. Seeing a taonga tūturu in the foyer is arresting: the sharpness of the details – cut with early steel chisels – reveals Te Tawakura’s instinct for innovation inside tradition. The carving carries its own stillness and mana, grounding the whole building before visitors enter the gallery spaces.
Pusi Urale (far left) and Vaimaila Urale (second in from left) at their exhibition. (Image: Chevron Hassett).
Next to it, Kereama Taepa’s exhibition, Whakairo, creates an immediate connection. His work explores the iro – the maggot that eats its way through timber – reimagined here in a digital form travelling across the gallery walls. Visitors pick up iPads to activate the work and follow the iro as it crawls through corners and over surfaces. Kids point, adults try to keep up, and strangers become momentary collaborators. The pairing of Te Tawakura’s historical carving and Taepa’s digital installation create a powerful feeling that tradition is something that moves, transforms and grows.
The bottom floor (of three in total) has a fun, cross-generational energy. Tania and Tawhai Rickard’s mahi is scattered throughout the gallery calling to mind an Easter egg hunt. Every so often, someone bends down or leans into a corner to open a little door and discover a miniature world inside. Some people treat it like a game, calling others over to share what they have found. Not far from there, the conversation shifts into softer, more personal terrain with Essential Oils, the collaborative exhibition by indigenous artists Tyrone Te Waa, from Aotearoa, and Matthew Harris, from Australia, , who weave a dialogue across the Tasman. Their works explore place, ancestry and spiritual undercurrents through material, scent and form, and the tone of the room encourages you to slow down.
Around the corner, a video work by Kaylene Whiskey holds its own gravitational pull. Her first time showing in Aotearoa, the piece blends pop culture joy with Anangu iconography. On screen, she moves through bright costumes, catchy music and the steady presence of strong women from her community. Upstairs, the atmosphere shifts into something more reflective, With an exhibit by mother and daughter team Pusi and Vaimaila Urale. Their works include mediums of paint, wood and fabric and move between Samoa and Aotearoa, between past and present, between inherited patterns and new interpretations. It feels ike a conversation held across decades.
Nearby, the jewellery and object works in Glimmer by Vanessa Arthur, Moniek Schrijer and Meredith Turnbull invite a closer, more intimate form of attention. People lean right up to the works, studying textures and shapes. These smaller works remind us that art need not be large to carry presence.
Kereama Taepa’s digital exhibit Iro. (Image: Chevron Hassett).
The final room belongs to Darcy Nicholas. Walking into his retrospective feels like taking a deep breath. His paintings, carvings and drawings span decades and hold a quiet authority. Nicholas’s work grounds the entire gallery, offering a sense of completeness.
Throughout the opening, the strongest feeling is connectedness to whenua in Timutimu’s work, across time in the pairing of Te Tawakura and Taepa’s, across oceans in the dialogue between Te Waa and Harris, through humour and joy in Whiskey’s video, through lineage with the Urale’s, and through legacy in Nicholas’s retrospective.
Director Sonya Korohina says the gallery’s temporary closure has been an opportunity. “It gave us a chance to ask what an art gallery today, and into the future, needs to be for its community.” The result?This project was about giving our community a place they feel belongs to them, a place that reflects Tauranga back to itself.”