Bio

Heidi Brickell (Te Hika o Pāpāuma, Ngāi Tara, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Apakura) is based in Ōtaki on the Kāpiti Coast. Her art practice is informed by her engagement with te reo Māori and its ongoing revitalisation. For a recent exhibition at Season gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau, she stated, ‘I am interested in the chorus of languages we use to share in experiences, as well as the uncaptured experience that flows through those nets.

Brickell has a long-term commitment to education and is currently a kaiako (educator) at Pātaka Art + Museum, Porirua, which follows a role as mātauranga Māori learning specialist at Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira.

Brickell’s artworks are distinctive for their rotated or reformatted shapes, and for the subtle deployment of multi-media components such as canvas string or relief elements. Wrestling for Whakawhētai (2024) is a case in point, in which an upended or diamond-shaped canvas is suggestive of rotation – containing a swirling composition that holds notional figures seen in plan-view and engaged in some form of string game – a dynamic play of movement, boundaries and fluid paint application.

‘Whakawhētai’ in te reo Māori can be translated as the act of giving kindness or being of a benevolent disposition. It suggests a mindset of give and take, of being open to influence and desirous of inspiration. Brickell was asked in a recent interview for My ART about an influential artwork; her choice reveals the sets of influences she allows to affect her artistic practice. ‘The one I’ve meditated on the most in recent years is Ihenga, a whare whakairo that I’ve stayed in a couple of times in Te Arawa that was carved by Lyonel Grant. The capacity of this whare to travel your mind and integrate so many threads of connection to stories and sensibilities past is something incredible.’

Heidi Brickell is an MFA graduate of the Elam School of Fine Arts (2011) and has recently been selected for a number of awards and residencies, including the Rita Angus Residency in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington (2023), and in 2024 she was named as the inaugural visiting artist at Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga Hastings Art Gallery.

Exhibitions

• 2024   Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington: A koru is a trajectory
  
• 2024   Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki: Aotearoa Contemporary
• 2024   Laree Payne Gallery, Kirikiriroa Hamilton: Ara within the Āhuru
• 2024   Melanie Roger Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland: The Secret Life of Plants
• 2023   Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū: Spring Time is Heart-break
• 2022   Season, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland: Ko Ngā Wawata a Hina
• 2022   Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, and The Physics Room, Ōtautahi Christchurch: Pakanga for the Lostgirl