About Amber Smith Studio

Q&A with Kina Gallery

You are a multi-media artist, creating works with beautifully intricate Māori designs. What first led you to your different creative mediums?

As far as mediums go, painting is my first love, but I've always been a maker too. I began making pottery because it was a way to support myself and my children while being at home with them.

The prints grew out of the images I was creating on the pottery. I create the original imagery in clay, photograph it, and then work with the images in Photoshop to build the final print. This process allows me to create larger and more complex images than I could make with ceramics alone.

So although the ceramics and prints look quite different, they actually come from the same place — making images by hand and seeing where they can take me.

Your focal point, alongside the Māori motifs, is to celebrate te reo Māori and whakataukī (Māori proverbs) which adorn your works. It is a beautiful and unique way of honouring the taonga that is te reo Māori. How did you first come about weaving this into your works?

I've been drawn to Māori art forms, particularly carving and tā moko, since I was young. My first marriage was to a man from a beautiful Ngātiwai whānau, and being part of that whānau had a profound effect on me and my awareness of te ao Māori.

After the marriage ended, I raised our child away from that whānau and in my own home town. I became very aware of what he was missing, and also of the casual racism that existed in the environment around us. I wanted to make a stand against that, and as an artist, art was the way I knew how to do that.

I believe art can be a subtle but powerful way of creating awareness and bringing people together. For me, using te reo Māori and whakataukī in my work has always come from that place — a desire to bring these beautiful words and ideas into people's everyday lives and to create a feeling of connection and unity.

I love the visual beauty of words, but I'm not a source of te reo Māori myself. My relationship with the language began with a friend teaching me some words, and kihi kihi — kiss kiss — seemed perfect for two little pīwakawaka to be saying to each other. And so it began.

I'm not really a bird artist. I'm more of a word artist.

Does the imagery on your works link to the whakataukī chosen?

Sometimes the bird I choose has a particular meaning, but these days the imagery follows broader themes and my attention is on the piece as a whole.

First I have to create the canvas for the work, which begins with hand-building the ceramic vessel or bowl. I build each form through coiling and pinching the clay. It has to be a complete work in itself before I even begin the etching.

Then I decorate it so that, even though it is a static object, it has movement — so that the birds appear to fly around the form.

This is why I don't use moulds, stamps or decals. Everything is hand painted because the image needs to fit the shape of each individual piece. Composition, contrast and design are all part of the challenge, and that's something I really enjoy.

You use the sgraffito technique, which is a method of creating images by scratching through a layer of paint or glaze to reveal the layer underneath. How long does this process take to complete?

A long time!

The whole process has many stages. I hand build all the forms and don't use moulds because I want each piece to develop organically, so no two pieces are exactly the same.

For every piece, the image has to be drawn to fit its particular shape. There are no stamps or decals — everything is drawn, etched and painted by hand. The etching itself is a slow process, and physically demanding too.

I want to make pieces that are treasured for a lifetime, so I take my time over them.

I put a lot of my heart into them.