In this exhibition, Ammon Ngakuru (b.1993, Ngāti Maniapoto, Te Roroa and Ngāpuhi) creates a space of ambiguity, where clarity and selectivity are purposefully rescinded. The viewer is invited into a constellation of settings that place them at the threshold between a space of safety – the nest – and the ever-present emblems and fragments
of distress and anxiety, which are looming on the periphery. It is intentionally left open whether the state of emergency, which creeps into the safe and relaxed setting of the inner space, is due to a light-hearted affinity for crime shows or a more sinister link to actual and abstract threats or fears. This dynamic tension echoes the artist’s broader interest in how personal and social narratives overlap, blur, and occasionally contradict, but also amplify one another.

With the decision to focus on painting for Telltale (a dog), Ngakuru challenges his own practice and artistic conventions. Beginning, again, at the very start: how do you get to an image? In a painting process that is intuitive and responsive to emerging forms, shapes and colour themes, the artist remains always perceptible and open to change. The narrative of the newly created works rests in the space in-between that can be defined by its indefinability and contradictions: interiors and exteriors, intimate and personal memories and feelings with outside observations, hidden clues and clear symbols, signs of comfort next to markers of danger populate this new series. Recurring motifs appear and dissolve, suggesting shifting states of attention and, maybe, the instability of meaning (and its production) itself. With Telltale (a dog), Ngakuru purposefully works against an easy readability, inviting viewers to inhabit the uncertainty rather than resolve it. To feel rather than understand.

Presented in association with Te Ahurei Toi o
Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival 2026.

I tēnei whakaaturanga a Ammon Ngakuru (b.1993, Ngāti Maniapoto, Te Roroa and Ngāpuhi), ā, ka rite mai i a ia i tētahi wāhi e pā mai ai te rangiruatanga, e āta whakakorea atu ai te māramatanga me te kōwhiringa. Ka whakatauhia te hunga mātakitaki ki roto ki ētahi horopaki e whakanoho ana i a rātou ki te pae, arā, ki te kōhanga, kei waenga i te haumarutanga, me ngā tohu kāore e matara atu o te anipā me te āwangawanga, e whātaretare mai ana i waho. I waiho ai kia puare ana, me kore noa e uru mai te ohotata ki te haumarutanga me te okiokinga o te ngākau, nā te rata atu pea ki tētahi hōtaka hara, ki tētahi atu āhuatanga mōkinokino kē atu rānei e pā nei ki ngā whakawehi me ngā mataku tūrehurehu, tūturu rānei. E whakaatu ana tēnei māharahara i te aronga whānui a te ringatoi ki te āhua o tā te ngā kōrero whaiaro, pāpori hoki whakapapa, whakarehurehu, whakahorihori hoki, tētahi i tētahi.

I tana whakatau ki te aro pū ki ana mahi peita i Telltale (he kurī), ka wero a Ngakuru i āna ake mahi, me āna tikanga toi.Tīmata atu anō, i te tīmtanga rā anō: me pēhea e puta mai ai he whakaahua? I tētahi tukanga peita e atamai ana, e urupare ana hoki ki ngā āhua me ngā kaupapa ā-tae, e pūmahara ana, e puare ana hoki te ringatoi ki ngā panonitanga. E noho ana ngā kōrero mō ngā mahi hou nei i te wāhi kei waenganui i tērā me uaua ka whakamāramatia me ngā whakahorihoringa, arā, kei
tēnei kohinga ngā mea o roto, o waho hoki, ngā maharatanga taupiri, whaiaro hoki, me ngā kare ā-roto e pā nei ki tā te rāwaho i kite ai, ngā tīwhiri me ngā tohu
e huna ana, ngā tohu o te hāneaneatanga kei te taha o ngā tohu o te mōrearea. Puta mai ai, nunumi atu ai hoki ngā tauira auau, e tohu ana i ngā āhuatanga e huri nei o
te aronga, ko te pāhekeheke pea tēnei o te tikanga tonu (me tana whakaputanga mai). I Telltale (he kurī), e ātete ana a Ngakuru i tētahi māramatanga wawe, ka tonoa kētia  e kaimātakitaki ki te noho ki roto i te rangiruatanga, tē whai kē ai ki te wewete noa. He āki nāna ki te āta rongo atu, kaua ki te whakamārama noa.

E whakaatuhia ana i te taha o Te Ahurei Toi o
Tāmaki Makaurau 2026.