Tui Hobson's 30 year career began ib the 1990's. As a self- taught sculptor/carver in native wood, stone, bronze and cast glass she has she has done over 75 solo and group shows, symposiums, private commissions and large public works. A pioneer contributor to the early development of Pacific visual arts having been amongst the big names in the 2008 residency at Kaoshiung Museum in Taiwan as part of Le Foluaga. Tui is entering a new period where her concerns for climate change and sustainability are drivers for her creative energy.
The young Tui inherited chisels, tools and a pile of wood from her pakeha father who had been a cabinet maker and sculptor who passed on skills and talents that are evident in Tui's works today.
Her Rarotongan grandmother, mother and Aunty master tivaevae artist, Lynnsay Rongokea who were all art designers and makers influenced her, particularly her nana, 'so when I started carving, I began with flowers and natural forms.
Winning the Martin Hughes Contemporary Pacific Award for Frangipani in 2004 meant that Tui traveled to the Cook Islands to meet with family and artists - a significant step for artists to connect with one’s Pacific roots.
Tui was prolific until 2014 when she took a break travelling overseas. She was selected in 2018 for 6- week residency to design and make 4 seats on site in the Rangimarie Gardens that commemorate 100 years since World War I in Le Quesnoy France. She continued working on private commissions and a 2022 exhibition of new work in Ponsonby Central.
Worldwide women carvers are rare so it is significant that Tui was amongst the first Aotearoa Cook Islands women to take up the chisel and the chain saw in Aotearoa. In answer to Trypena Cracknell’s question in Te Aute – Journal of Maori Art 2019, ‘Is it true that women can’t carve’ to Ngati Porou master carver and 2013 Arts Foundation Icon winner the late Dr Pakariki Harrison QSO simply replied, ‘Women carved’.
The article Wahine Mau Whao: A Woman’s Hand to the Chisel as one of the wahine Maori revising imposed gender divisions of the colonial landscape of Aotearoa New Zealand’ includes Tui and argues ‘these women deserve better recognition… and sit with the larger story of how women are generally disregarded in the art- historial pantheon, absent from exhibitions, books and public collections’.
So she takes her place as a significant carver in the stories of contemporary wahine mau whose practice is the art of carving.
Marilyn Kohlhase MNZM - Auckland Museum Pacific Advisory Group Alumni Trust.
Founder co-Director of Okaioceanikart Gallery/Okai@Reef Gallery 2007 to 2012
