Justin Kite

Justin Kite (Ngati Kahungunu)

My current paper works are heavily influenced by Maori and Chinese culture including my ‘fan format’, script and blue and white porcelain artworks.

I gained a Bachelor of Visual Art and Design from The Eastern Institute of Technology. Graduating in 2004 I completed my Post Graduation Diploma in teaching Secondary Art and Art History.

I have taught Visual Art and Design in New Zealand and Shanghai, China for 14 years. Living and working in a range of different countries has been a major stimulus in my art-making process. I enjoy playing with the relationships and visual hierarchy of silhouettes and internal narratives to achieve contradictions and surreal worlds. Taking observations of diversity and everyday situations. I play with the multi-layers of societal contexts, attempting to highlight the complexities and randomness of post-modern life.

New works on plywood are combine, mixed media works with subject matter and narrative inspired by pop culture such as games, music lyrics and media. I also like to explore visual conventions such as scale, contrast and movement. I try to capture melodrama, with the figurative and the abstract. I often integrate my Maori culture and every work is a self-portrait.

I hope that the viewers appreciate my art, whether it is aesthetically or on a deeper level.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”.