Te Taumata Exhibition Series, featuring mixed media artist Rona Ngahuia Osborne, is Artstation’s latest and opens on 21 June, as part of Matariki Festival 2011.

Rona Ngahuia Osborne will presenting the installation Taumau, in the Artstation toi tu gallery, from 21 June to 9 July.

Te Taumata Exhibition Series, featuring mixed media artist Rona Ngahuia Osborne, is Artstation’s latest and opens on 21 June, as part of Matariki Festival 2011.

Rona Ngahuia Osborne will presenting the installation Taumau, in the Artstation toi tu gallery, from 21 June to 9 July.

This exhibition brings together various works from the last 5 years including the centrepiece, Taumau – an ensemble designed for a mixed race marriage.

“Matariki is a time for celebrating family and ancestral connections and this exhibition is all about my family. The Taumau installation is based on my great great grandparents marriage. It is also a metaphor for bi-culturalism,” says artist, Rona Ngahuia Osborne.

Osborne employs a combination of imagery from Aotearoa’s colonial past with ideas about identity. She employs techniques that interplay between art and craft, working mainly in textiles.

Rona Ngahuia Osborne’s exhibition will be accompanied by a Te Taumata Exhibition Series catalogue, which will include an essay by writer and academic, Dr Bronwyn Lloyd.

Te Taumata Exhibition Series 2011 is curated by Karl Chitham and features four of Aotearoa's foremost artists in galleries across the Auckland region celebrating excellence in M?ori visual arts.

Osborne was born in Auckland in 1974, but grew up in the Hokianga, and shares Irish, Welsh, Scottish, English and Maori ancestry.

Following a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts majoring in painting from the Elam School of Fine Arts, Osborne decided to employ her cultural mix by establishing the highly successful Native Agent brand.

For more information on the Te Taumata Exhibition Series and the Matariki Festival programme go to: http://www.matarikifestival.org.nz/

Exhibition:               Te Taumata Exhibition Series 2011
Artist:                         Rona Ngahuia Osborne
Curated by               Karl Chitham
Exhibition dates:    21 June - 9 July 2011
Opening:                  Tuesday, 28 June 5-7pm

Gallery hours: 9am to 7pm Monday, 9am to 5pm Friday and 10am to 4pm Saturday.

Artstation, 1 Ponsonby Rd, Newton, Auckland www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/artstation

Ph 09 376 3221