Fred GRAHAM

Kaitiaki 2004
Steel plate
11805 x 5000 x 2000 mm
Collection of the Edmiston Trust, Auckland Domain

Part of the project initiated by Outdoor Sculpture 2001 Incorporated for the Auckland Domain and funded by the Edmiston Trust with support of the New Zealand Lottery Grant Board Millennium Fund and the Auckland City Council.

"By acknowledging engineer Rex Erikson as his co-worker in creating this structure of welded and bolted steel plate, Fred Graham brings to our attention the importance of the making of Kaitiaki. This sculpture belongs to the tradition of Modernist constructions which proclaim the right of artists to address sculpture-making as their sole subject. Form and fabrication, material and mass, substance and scale create a language of their own that compels the viewer to engage with the fundamental aesthetics of sculpture in its own right. Yet, if that were all, this work would simply add a new feature to the lofty contemporary structures of Auckland city. But Kaitiaki is not an abstract work, and its hawk-like silhouette acknowledges a tradition that long precedes the introduction of western art forms to New Zealand. Graham observes that birds were the first inhabitants of Aotearoa, the original Tangata Whenua. They figure prominently in Maori lore, and hawks in particular feature in the proverbs of the Ngati Whatua and Tainui peoples of the Auckland area. Recalling indigenous histories, Kaitiaki's looming shape is dark against the sky, and the cut-out eye, capturing a fragment of its brightness, suggests a constant surveillance. While the jagged swoop of the black form may seem threatening, it conveys the strength that makes the hawk a powerful guardian of the land."

Special thanks to Rex Erikson.

Text written by Elizabeth Rankin, Professor of Art History, Auckland University, is from a publication sponsored by the P.A. Edmiston Trust, Auckland City Council and Hobson Community Board. Photograph taken by Gill Hanly courtesy of Urbis magazine.

FRED GRAHAM, is Ngaati Koroki, Kahukura and Ruakawa. He was born in Arapuni in 1928 and began his career in carving under master carver Pine Taiapa.

As a young man he worked as an art teacher in Rotorua, Bay of Plenty and Northland; his career later developed to teaching art to teachers themselves. He was one of a group of Mäori artists including Ralph Hotere, Arnold Wilson and Para Matchitt who were trained by Gordon Tovey as national art specialists for the Department of Education during the 1950s.

In 1986 he visited Canada as part of the Artists Exchange Programme, and in 1996 he completed a commission for the Burke Museum in Seattle, USA. In 1994 his work featured in 'Te Waka Toi: Contemporary Maori Art' which toured the United States.

Key works by Graham can be found in the Auckland High Court, Auckland Botanical Gardens and the National Archives Building in Wellington as well as in public libraries, city plazas and urban park spaces throughout New Zealand and abroad. In 2008 he completed a sculpture referencing the Walsh Brothers in Mission Bay and Taurapa, was installed in Queen Street, central Auckland.

Graham continues to work on a variety of commissions for public and private collections.