Tina Middlemiss
Bio
A lifelong painter of landscapes, in 2023 I embarked on some local pottery courses and found an unexpected and powerful convergence in clay melding drawing, etching, and form into expressions of my art. Born in Hawke’s Bay and raised in Tairāwhiti from the age of seven I lived here most of my life. My family history is full of Scottish and Irish immigrants, with my mum arriving from Falkirk, Scotland at 18 and my dad, from Rhodesia at 11 and who become the first NZ Olympic archer. Travels abroad and study at the University of Auckland widened my lens, but Tairāwhiti has always inspired me and drawn me back. To me, working with earth, water and fire is not just creative it’s ancestral. The act of shaping clay echoes early childhood play as well as reaching deep into history.
Description
Pottery - In vessels and hangings, I am drawing altered waterways into clay. Like the stream at Tokomaru Bay Wharf (the stream is made to pass through an old freezing works as a drain) and the Waipaoa River (the flats cleared for industry).
Social - @tinamiddlemiss
Contact - Tina.middlemiss@gmail.com
Link to research
These images mark a time and place that will disappear in time so that capturing them in clay they can be preserved for a while longer as a record of sorts. Fired clay, unlike fleeting digital records or fragile paper, can survive millennia. In this, my practice becomes not only an act of art, but a legacy a form of storytelling for the far future. Landscapes in Te Tairāwhiti are being altered again by climate change and may never look the same again.
