Shells

      Wendy Whitehead (Ngāti Porou, Irish, English) is a body adornment artist who utilises a combination of natural and raw materials such as precious metals, fibres, native wood, shell, stones and more to create unique designer taonga rich in whakapapa. Each piece is an original design with traditional and contemporary signature features, such as female eyelashes or lips that accentuate the feminine, ira atua, ira wahine, and mana wahine. Her works are abstracted traditional patterns connecting periods of the past, present and future. Wendy’s technical skill and design processes highlights her unique flair and class as a practicing artist and tutor in this field alongside other great Māori artisans such as Alex Nathan, Lewis Gardiner and other ringatoi around the motu. A registered Toi Iho artist, Wendy is one of the original first 100 artists to be awarded the Māori quality and authenticity trademark in 2003. She is now recognised as Te Ara Whakarei a lifetime member of Toi Iho. An expert in fine art soldering, Wendy’s attention to preparing her materials and assembling her innovative thinking into each piece is incredible. She savours every resource available to her and is articulate in expressing her appreciation for the many stories drawn on by her whakapapa. The necklace featured above is called ‘Kōkako Manu Tukutuku’, a timely piece to acknowledge the Ōtaki Kite Festival 2025:

“Kites, or manu tukutuku, have always played an important role in Māori culture, particularly during the winter season when they were flown to signify the start of Matariki, the Māori New Year. Our tūpuna flew kites for recreation, but also to communicate with other hapū as well as a means to communicate with those who had passed on, connecting heaven and earth."