Ngai Tamanuhiri, Rongowhakaata, Ngati Porou, Ngati Pahauwera, Rarotongan and Pākeha.

Kauri Hawkins is a Māori artist whose work comments on contemporary New Zealand issues through a Māori lens. Working with diverse materials and art forms from road signs and scultpure to performance art and videography. Challenging the cultural significance of objects and colonial notions as a means of self-reflection and artistic expression.

Kauri is from Muriwai, Tūranganui-a-Kiwa and has tribal affiliations to Ngai Tamanuhiri and Ngati Porou, Rongowhakaata, Ngati Pahauwera and Pākeha. He also descends from the Island of Aitiutaki in the Cook Islands.

Hawkins has exhibited in galleries throughout New Zealand and Australia. Most recently at the Canberra Art Biennale (2022) and Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney with Tarseal Navigation (2022). His carved Kauri sculpture (native timber) work ‘Kauri Pou Whenua’ featured at the Waiheke Sculpture on the Gulf, 2019, which is now part of a significant private collection in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Kauri Hawkins was born in Palmerston North in 1995 and raised in Tūranganui-a-kiwa (Gisborne), New Zealand. He currently lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand.

Kauri is represented in Aotearoa/ New Zealand by PAULNACHE gallery (Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Gisborne) and in Australia by Chalk Horse Gallery (Sydney)