Laura Williams

LAURA WILLIAMS

Self-taught Auckland based artist Laura Williams paints brightly coloured illustrative scenes of imaginative utopian realms. When not painting she works as a union organiser up and down the country.

Lauras canvases are populated with an intricate web of signs, symbols, textures and colour. She creates vibrant utopian realms with disparately sized flora and fauna that visually stimulate from edge to edge.

The artist can be contacted via Black Asterisk

Artwork is printed on Ilford Smooth Cotton Rag 310gsm, with Archival Inks by Fine Art printer Sanji Karu at Skar Image Lab
Paper size: A4 (210 × 297mm).

This archival print has been created with authority of Laura Williams.
Estimated delivery time 4 weeks from purchase.
Each Artwork comes with a certificate of authenticity.

Each artist was asked to create an artwork about tiki, and what it means to them, especially for the event.
Artist statement on their artwork:
When I was fifteen a teacher told my parents I had the potential of a cooked scone. So it wasn’t until my thirties, after fifteen years selling women’s clothing, that I decided to go to university. It was here that I discovered Karl Marx, whose socialist ideas resonated with me deeply. I did a masters on emotional labour and the front-line service worker, and now work full time as a union organizer, which largely involves empowering workers to determine their rights and worth.

My studies and work have led me to focus on our own New Zealand history around unionism and organised labour, through which I’ve discovered that twenty-seven years before Karl Marx wrote the communist manifesto, Māori timber workers in the Bay of Islands led New Zealand’s very first industrial action where they downed tools until their employer paid them as they determined for their labour: in currency or gunpowder and not with traded items.
Historically Samuel Parnell is credited with being the instigator of organised labour in New Zealand, when 19 years after the Māori timber workers striked, he refused to work more than 8 hours a day.
So for me, the Māori Marx is paying homage to the mana of those brave Māori workers who were the first to take industrial action in New Zealand.
Māori Marx is not so much to be seen a hei-tiki, but rather as a respectful echo of one, created with aroha.

– Laura Williams 2017