\u201cLife feels incredibly busy and full of noise and constant information, and my art has become a place to step away from that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a space where I can slow down, breathe and be fully present in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through the exhibition, Lewis-Whaanga offers a quiet reminder of how important it is to create that sense of Ma in our own lives. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo find small moments of stillness, to pause and to simply be. It\u2019s in those spaces that we reconnect with ourselves, with each other and with what really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis-Whaanga has been creating and developing the artworks over the past few months, giving enough time to allow the process to \u201cunfold naturally, without rush\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve really enjoyed creating this body of work. The folding, in particular, feels very meditative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis-Whaanga is a specialist teacher at Te Wharau School, where she teaches mindfulness and self-regulation. <\/p>\n
\u201cI love my job and how it aligns closely with my art practice. I choose not to work Fridays as it is my day to slow down and create.\u201d<\/p>\n
She works with a mix of materials, including Fabriano paper, rice paper and tracing paper, along with Japanese sumi ink. She incorporates lino printing into some of the pieces. <\/p>\n
Each work is finished with her Japanese family hanko stamp or takahashi.<\/p>\n
Many of the pieces have origami butterflies on them – a symbol of transformation.<\/p>\n
Many of artist Maiko Lewis-Whaanga’s pieces feature origami butterflies, which symbolise transformation and “a strong connection to transience – the fleeting nature of life”.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also connected to the soul and to a sense of elegance and femininity. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, they also hold a strong connection to transience \u2013 the fleeting nature of life. They are a reminder to slow down, to notice and to feel gratitude for the moments that pass so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis-Whaanga works across different stages of the artworks, rather than focusing on just one piece at a time. <\/p>\n
Over a few months, she slowly folded her butterflies, flowers and did the larger Miura folds, characterised by a pattern of parallelograms. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen I\u2019ll spend a couple of days focused on large sumi ink brushstrokes on big sheets of paper. This is one of my favourite parts of the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually begin with a short meditation and take a mindful breath before each brushstroke, letting it move intuitively, rather than trying to control it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the final weeks, once all the individual elements are created, she moves into composition. <\/p>\n
\u201cI work with the frames, selecting parts of the brushstrokes that speak to me and then adding the butterflies or flowers. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very intuitive process and guided by what feels right in the moment. The way I create these works is really a reflection of Ma \u2013 the space, the pause, the in-between.\u201d <\/p>\n
The exhibition runs to the end of April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cLife feels incredibly busy and full of noise and constant information, and my art has become a place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,32127,678,6283,366,18,117,2037,32871,50353,19,17,185837,14688,3116,185836,20282,27023,110705,1213,12053],"class_list":["post-412644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-brings","tag-busy","tag-cafe","tag-design","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibition","tag-explores","tag-gisborne","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lewiswhaanga","tag-lives","tag-ma","tag-maiko","tag-mindfulness","tag-need","tag-pause","tag-to","tag-verve"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116321932086504920","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}