Rereahua, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura

Hiria Anderson-Mita is based in Ōtorohanga, Aotearoa. She was educated in art and painting at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa (1996–1998) and later completed a Master of Fine Arts with First Class Honours at Whitecliffe College of Art and Design, Auckland, in 2016. 

In the mid-2000s, Anderson-Mita co-ran a local art gallery in Te Awamutu with colleagues, following several years working in arts education. Her professional practice gained wider momentum in 2017 with her first solo exhibition, A Painter on Tūrongo Street, at Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland. This was followed by an exhibition at Page Galleries, Wellington, an inclusion in the group exhibition Figure Skating (2021). She continues to be represented by these galleries, with a solo exhibition opening at Page Galleries on the 2nd of July.

Working predominantly in oil paint, Anderson-Mita’s practice is grounded in the familiarity of everyday life within her culture and community. Scenes of transit, domesticity, and ordinary encounters become quiet sites of reflection, where social structures, relationships, tikanga, and politics are subtly present. Her paintings invite viewers into an intimate, painterly register of contemporary life as lived and observed by a Māori painter.