The biggest influence on my art by someone else, since the early days, has been C. F. Goldie's Māori portraiture. His work is a snapshot in time and conveys the mana of the people. His portrait of Ina Te Papatahi (1902) keeps coming up as an important one for me over the years. Ina te Papatahi lived at the Waipapa Māori hostel in Mechanics Bay, Tāmakimakaurau / Auckland, not far from Charles Goldie’s Hobson Street studio. She sat for him many times.
