Areta Wilkinson's Poi Girl series features silhouettes of the artist - notionally brooches - presented in bell jars. Poi Girl VIII (pictured above) sees Areta in profile tending a campfire. The metaphor of the campfire has appeared in a number of works, and her latest exhibition Waka Huia features the one pictured below as a brooch.
Called Areta's ahi kaa this work references the Maori metaphor of ahi kaa or keeping the home fires burning, the cultural fires fed, and the ancestral lands cared for.
Poi Girl VIII see Areta's literally tending the ahi kaa - maintaining and acknowledging her Ngai Tahu ancestry, but also her artistic heritage as a jeweller.
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