Ngāpuhi, Te Ātiawa

Gabrielle Belz (Gabes) was born in Papakura and trained as a commercial artist, beginning in the art department at Heraldry Studios in 1965, before becoming a full-time painter and printmaker, an integral member of many Māori art collectives and trusted community leader.

Gabes is a master of multi-layered wood-cut prints, is known for her signature use of hand-made harakeke paper and poignant visual language that celebrates the land, people, and our ties to each other. Referencing history, language, personal experience, and observation, her narrative-based visual language often features manu (birds), watchful keepers, and guardians of the natural world, which she styles as a form of commentary on people and their behaviours.

Gabes was a long-standing member of Ngā Puna Waihanga, a founding member of Kauwai (National Māori Women’s Art Collective), and instrumental in the formation of Toi Whakaata, the Māori printmakers collective established in 2003. Much of Gabes’ work draws on the history of printmaking in Aotearoa New Zealand and early Māori engagement with paper and the written word, saying that the enthusiasm among Māori “to have a paper that could ‘talk’, have been considerations in my work”. More recently, Gabes supported the development of Toi o Taranaki, a collective of Māori artists with whakapapa to Taranaki iwi, from her base in Patea and curated several exhibitions of the collectives’ work. in 2020, she was a part of the Toi Tu Toi Ora – Māori Artists Exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery. In 2022, Gabes curated Whiria an exhibition inviting artists of various backgrounds to consider the Tiriti, its ramifications, and to make work that can lead us forward, and the following year, had a solo exhibition Dancing with Stars at Lysaght Watt Gallery, Hawera. 

Gabes has exhibited her work throughout Aotearoa and internationally including Mana Wahine (1995) in Tucson, Arizona; Haka (1997-98), which toured the United Kingdom; and Kiwa-Pacific Connections (2003) in Vancouver, Canada. She has also completed several significant public commissions, notably those at the Mangere East Library, Glen Innes shopping Centre in Tāmaki Makaurau, the nocturnal house at Wellington Zoo, and Te Waonui o Matauranga commissioned by Manukau Institute of Technology.  More recently in 2022, Gabes produced two works to adorn ‘Vallery’, a travelling art campervan promoting art from Taranaki, Whanganui, and Manawatu districts. 

Gabes is a long-serving member of Te Ātinga, served as Chair from 2005-2007, and remains a valued member and contributor to the Te Ātinga and Toi Māori whānau.