Julie Paama-Pengelly (Ngāiterangi, Ngāi Tūwhiwhia, Ngāti Tauaiti, Ngāti Tapu) is a multidisciplinary artist, author, and foundational figure in the contemporary Māori arts sector. Operating her successful Mount Maunganui base, Art + Body Creative Studio her lifelong practice merges political identity activism with customary visual traditions to empower Māori cultural development. Her multi-faceted career stretches from ancestral skin marking to institutional governance, positioning her as one of the region’s most influential creative leaders.

As a veteran who stood at the vanguard of the modern Tā moko resurgence in the mid-1980s, Julie was one of the first wāhine to break into and lead within this deeply male-dominated discipline. She has been a vital voice for Māori women’s rights, successfully pioneering their roles as both practitioners and rightful recipients of specific customary moko. Her profound impact on the revival of skin marking includes being commissioned alongside New Zealand’s top artists to perform Tā moko publicly at Te Papa National Museum in 2004, where she applied full, customary peha and pūhoro markings to two women. 

Beyond her physical practice, Julie has significantly enriched the documentation of this ancestral legacy, detailing its historical weight as the author of Tāku Puhoro Tāku Purotu, and contributor to Truly Tribal: Contemporary Indigenous Tattooing while serving as a prominent subject featured across biographical books like Nuku: Stories of 100 Indigenous Women, Spirit | Conversations With Creative Women, Taiawhiao II. and the Skindigenous 2 New Zealand (Julie Paama-Pengelly) a Canadian Documentary Series. She initiated the renowned Toi Kiri: World International Indigenous Tatau Festival under Te Tuhi Mareikura Trust to reunite global indigenous practitioners.

Beyond her skin-marking practice, Julie has spent more than two decades shaping contemporary Māori arts, design, and ancestral narratives through scholarship, tertiary education, and curation. She authored the landmark, award-winning book Māori Art & Design (2010) on its fourth reprint, which is celebrated as the first comprehensive handbook covering weaving, painting, carving, and architecture and is considered a definitive anchor for Toi Māori studies.

Her extensive teaching career includes delivering fine arts and design curricula at the tertiary level for over twenty years, serving as a Senior Lecturer in Masters programmes and Head of Arts and Visual Culture at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi. Additionally, her curatorial practice has framed regional and national contemporary art collections, directing solo and group exhibitions at Art + Body, and curating historical indigenous showcases like Navigating the Now. Most notably, her early curatorial footprint connects to Ngā Kōrero Aotearoa: Fifty Māori Artists (1999), a millennial milestone within the history of curated Māori group exhibitions that bridged the radical activations of the 1980s with the multi-disciplinary sovereign spaces of the 21st century. By gathering fifty diverse creators at The Dowse Art Museum, this landmark exhibition fundamentally disrupted Eurocentric institutional frameworks, dismantling the artificial divisions between customary material practices and contemporary fine art to establish a new benchmark for Māori-led curatorial self-determination.

Julie’s dual fluency in creative mastery and institutional governance has made her a highly sought-after advisor on public trusts, educational boards, and national evaluation panels. She holds a Master of Māori Visual Arts (Honours), a Master of Philosophy in Third World Development, and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Massey University. This academic foundation underpins her governance work as the Chairperson of the Te Tuhi Mareikura Charitable Trust, alongside roles as an expert consultant for the Ministry of Education, an industry evaluator on NZQA tertiary panels, and an acquisitions guide for corporate and public art collections. Her lifelong leadership and advocacy have been recognised with the highly prestigious Ngā Tohu Hautūtanga Auaha Toi – Making a Difference Award by Creative New Zealand (Te Waka Toi), and she holds Toi Iho certification, a registered trademark verifying the  authenticity and quality of her Tā moko, design, and multimedia work.

Julie’s diverse Toi Maori visual art range stretches across graphic design, mixed media, printmaking, and painting. Her spatial design and public arts mastery is encapsulated by her recent landmark public commission, Māramatanga (Enlightenment), suspended in the atrium of the Holland Beckett offices at the Northern Quarter in Tauranga CBD. This large-scale three-dimensional sculpture was hand-woven using up-cycled aluminium window blinds and stainless steel. Inspired by ancestral weaving traditions, the artwork interprets the three legendary baskets of knowledge (kete-aronui, kete-tuauri, and kete-tuatea) into an architectural metaphor for legal wisdom, community excellence, and cultural continuity.

Links

• Tā moko artist Julie Paama Pengelly talks about the challenges she’s faced in a male-dominated industry. Te Ahi Kaa by Justine Murray for radio New Zealand;
• Tauranga Memories, Tauranga Artists; Julie Paama-Pengelly: Artist and Director of Art + Body

Contact

Tel: +64 21331072
Insta: @julesartistmoko
FB: @julesartistmoko
W: www.julesartistmoko.com
E: julesartistmoko@gmail.com

Art Body Creative Studio
229a Maunganui Road, Mt Maunganui 3116, New Zealand
Insta: @artbodycreative
FB: @artbodycreative
W: www.artbody.co.nz/team/jules