Artwork Information

Pictured holding a child, Nataria Mitchell (Haupapa) lived at Te Papaiouru, Ohinemutu, on the water’s edge of Lake Rotorua. She belonged to the Ngāti Whakaue people of Te Arawa, the undisputed guardians of New Zealand’s most famous thermal region. At the time Goldie painted this portrait, the people of Ohinemutu lived in a perpetual cloud of steam with hot springs hissing, spouting, boiling and seething in every direction. (Chic Colonials: Ataahua, 2004)