Lonnie Hutchinson

Lonnie Hutchinson (born Auckland 1963) is a New Zealand artist of Māori (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kuri ki Ngāi Tahu), Samoan and European descent.

Hutchinson received a Diploma in Textile Printing from the Auckland Institute of Technology in 1992 and a Bachelor of Design (3D Design) from the Unitec Institute of Technology in 1998.

She completed her Diploma of Education in 1999 and has worked as a teacher.

Hutchinson has worked in a range of artistic media, including film, performance, painting, sculpture and installation art.

She frequently draws upon feminism, historical narratives and her Māori and Pacific Island heritage to inform her work.

Ultimately, according to curator Ane Tonga, her practice often creates "new methodologies that link colonial and ancestral accounts to inform and empower indigenous women in their urban existence.”

Hutchinson said of her work,

"'Intrinsic to each series within my art practice, I honour tribal whakapapa or genealogy. In doing so, I move more freely between the genealogy of past, present and future to produce works that are linked to memories of recent and ancient past, that are tangible and intangible...I make works that talk about those spaces in-between, those spiritual spaces.'"

In 2002 the collective researched ancient rock platforms called tia seu lupe (pigeon snaring mounds) in Samoa, resulting in an exhibition titled Vahine.

She is particularly recognised for her sculptural 'cut outs' made from black builders paper, such as sista7 (2003) in the collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery.

Curator Ane Tonga noted that the recurring use of this material in Hutchinson's art practice works to address "a wide range of historical, social and representational constructs."

Lonnie Hutchinson is represented by The Central Art Gallery in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Hutchinson has also been commissioned to produce a number of public or long-term installation works.

These include Beat the Feet, a site-specific work responding to the Christchurch Cathedral as part of Art and Industry's Biennial SCAPE 2008; Te Taumata, six site-specific works for the opening of the redeveloped Auckland Art Gallery in 2011; a digital binocular station that presents viewers with images of virtual landscapes in Chews Lane in central Wellington; I Like Your Form as part of The Arcades Project in the Festival of Transitional Architecture in Christchurch in 2014; and Star Mound, produced for the 2015 Sculpture on the Gulf exhibition.

In 2012 the collective shared the Creative New Zealand and National University of Samoa Samoa Artist in Residence award, with each artist spending a month in Samoa to extend the research and work began a decade earlier.

Hutchinson has been included in major group exhibitions including:

Hutchinson has also had numerous solo and collaborative exhibitions, including:

Hutchinson's works are held in many public collections including the Auckland Art Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery, the Hocken Collections, The Dowse Art Museum, the Queensland Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia.

In August 2015 Hutchinson's sculpture Night/I Love You was launched on a Ronwood Ave car park in Manukau, south Auckland.

Three years in the making the work was commissioned through the Auckland City Council's regional public art programme.

The work is made up of two phrases in neon lettering, 'I Love You' and 'Aroha atu Aroha mai', on adjacent walls of the carpark.

In December 2016 the first stage of Hutchinson's commission for Christchurch's new justice precinct was unveiled.

Made up of more than 1,400 individual curved, teardrop-shaped pieces of anodised aluminium, the 36-metre long work on the facade of a multi-storey carpark was inspired by Māori kākahu (woven cloaks) and the feathers of the endangered kakapo.

In developing the work Hutchinson studied a kākahu made with kakapo feathers from the collection of the Perth Museum and Art Gallery in Scotland.

Two other pieces of the commission – a huia feather design to be printed on windows and landscaping of the surrounding grounds – are still under development.

Hutchinson has also worked collaboratively with artists Lily Laita and Niki Hastings-McFall as the 'Vahine Collective'.