Matt Pine

Name: Matt Pine
Iwi/Ethnicity: Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi/Māori
Ngāti Tūwharetoa/Māori
Te Āti Awa/Māori
Date of birth: 04 Sep 1941
Nationality: New Zealander
Biography: Born and raised in Whanganui, Matt Pine was educated at Whanganui Collegiate School, later studying sculpture at fine art schools in Christchurch and Auckland. In 1963, he travelled to the United Kingdom to undertake postgraduate studies.

He returned to New Zealand in 1974, awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship in 1979. Over the next decade, Pine developed an idiosyncratic sculptural practice influenced by the physical structures, construction techniques and sculptural grammar of Māori and Pacific design.

Pine’s work thereafter turned to an ongoing series of personal laments and memorials for his whanaunga (relatives) killed during World War II. Pine’s work continues to be concerned with the toll of human-induced crises on people, land and ecologies.