Pukerua Bay resident, Isaac du Toit achieved success with his first time submitting work to an exhibition. His work, The Exchange, after Tupaia, The Flood, The Last Supper took out the Tertiary Student Artist Award at the inaugural Toi MAHARA Young Artists Exhibition.
Du Toit was one of six young artists to receive an award at the new biennial exhibition which celebrate the talents of young and emerging Kāpiti and Horowhenua artists. Although based in Pukerua Bay, du Toit has a strong connection to Kāpiti having gone to Kāpiti College. His grandmother who lives in Kāpiti had encouraged him to submit.
Du Toit is now a student at the Learning Connexion, building on his childhood passion in art.
“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in art. From a very young age I have been making things. At kindy I was an art-table kid and would return home with armloads of cardboard creations. I took art at Kāpiti College and also studied art history through Te Kura when I was in high school.”
Du Toit’s work is the result of his intensive art practice of creating and then photographing 3D dioramas (three-dimensional models).
“I started creating 3D dioramas as a way of illustrating children’s picture books in about 2020. This way of working was initially inspired by the German illustrator Antje Damm. The dioramas are a lot like stage sets that I create and then photograph. My style has developed over time and now incorporates a wider range of mediums.”
His series of three works explores climate change, particularly environmental destruction versus short-term profit.
“My starting point is a reference to Tupaia’s watercolour and pencil drawing of c.1769 depicting Joseph Banks bartering for a lobster. This is quite a well-known image and has been referenced by quite a lot of New Zealand artists. In my 2024 version a young person exchanges a fern (representing the environment) for a lump of coal. The second two works depict the result of that exchange—flood and fire. I hope that people looking carefully at my work can see different layers of meaning and references.”
“The dioramas I created for this triptych no longer exist. For The Flood I created a diorama and then flooded it with water. The image is not photoshopped. The diorama of The Last Supper was set on fire and I only managed to take a couple of photos—luckily I was happy with one of them!”
Du Toit’s work was one of more than 80 works were submitted by artists between the ages of 13 and 25, narrowed to an exhibition of 60 works which will be showing in Toi MAHARA’s Te Manawa Toi I Coastlands Gallery until early February.
The Tertiary Student Artist Award was sponsored by Zebunisso Alimova – Mike Pero Mortgages.
Other award winners were:
Secondary Student Artist Award — Charlie Dale-Low for Passing by (sponsor Green Van Solar & Electrical)
Digital Award — Michael Tanirau for Response Code (sponsor SignCraft Kāpiti)
Toi Māori Award — Ellie-May Wilson for Kōmitimiti by Te Inati Auaha (sponsor Mills Albert)
Highly Commended Award — Georgia Doyne for Ophelia (sponsor Athfield Architects).
Open Award — Katie Godwin for Grief (sponsor Coastlands)
A seventh award, The People’s Choice, sponsored by the Friends of Toi MAHARA, will be voted for by people attending the exhibition and presented on the closing weekend.