Te Arawa
Tamaora says “What drives me as a pounamu artist is knowing that everything I create is FOREVER, just like diamonds but with a Mauri – life force – that will carry our art forms into the future and beyond”.
He was born in Rotorua in 1984 and still lives there, working fulltime as a whakairo pounamu artist, pushing the materials to create his own unique style in his studio Carve It Up Studio & Gift Shop.
He started his career as a pounamu artist in 2004 when he met Lewis Gardiner who took him on as a fulltime employee, teaching him the fundamentals of both modern whakairo pounamu and Maori design.
Since then he has had works included in two exhibitions at Vancouver’s Spirit Wrestler Gallery: Kaitiaki – Guardians in 2006, and Mini Masters II in 2008, and also that year his work was part of Toi Maori: small treasures at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
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