Stacy Gordine

Ngati Porou

Stacy says “My whakapapa – great grand-uncles Pine and Hone te Karu Taiapa and their amazing carving legacy – is inspiring”. Other influences were, when studying at polytechnic, “meeting and working alongside bone carvers such as Brian Flintoff and Dave Hegglun”

Inter-actions with other Pacific rim indigenous artists such as those from the north-west coast of North America and Hawaii have also been influential. He credits inspiration from an artistic exchange with Dave Galanin, Alaskan artist and musician, from whom he learnt Tlingit silver and copper engraving and shaping techniques, and to whom he taught stone carving techniques. This exchange was made possible by a grant from Te Waka Toi/Creative New Zealand.

Another “Big influence was seeing Bill Ried’s work in Vancouver, seeing how he worked in multi-media: silver, gold, boxwood, ivory, paint, wood, bronze, and multi-scale from minute to massive. It was very influential in shaping the future I want to pursue, to be able to work in many media/materials, work that is multi-scale from small intricate adornment to large sculptural works. To produce works that are museum quality and are heirlooms – in response to the flooding of the market with cheap and poorly-executed works that devalue what were once highly-valued taonga/treasures.

His ambition is to “become a link in a chain of artisans, carvers and practitioners stretching back through history and into future generations, hopefully inspiring people now and in the future to be creative, just as I have been inspired by the works and artists of the past”. He finds inspiration in the taonga left by his tupuna, but tries to interpret them in his own way, believing in “incorporating modern tools and equipment, what our tupuna would have done, how it would have influenced their work if they’d had access to these technologies”.

Stacy was born in Hastings in 1970 and lives there still.

He studied for a Certificate in Craft & Design at the Hawkes Bay Polytechnic over 1988/89, then gained a Diploma in Maori Art & Design in 2006 from Te Wananga o

Raukawa in Otaki, followed two years later by a Diploma in Visual Art & Design from Hawkes Bay’s Eastern Institute of Technology.

He has exhibited widely: Alaska, Vancouver and San Francisco, and within New Zealand at public galleries in Porirua, Hastings and Gisborne.

His work is in the collections of Te Papa Tongarewa, Porirua’s Pataka Museum and the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt, and it was featured in the 2008 publication Te Kahui O Matariki, edited by Libby Hakaraia and Colleen Waata Urlich.