ROKC THE MOON

ROKC THE MOON

Peter Hawkesby / Reece King / Tyrone Te Waa

26 September – 24 October 2026

Peter Hawkesby was born in 1950 in Cockle Bay, Auckland, where the gutters were made of clay. He began making ceramics in the 1970s, developing an approach that ran counter to the wheel-thrown utilitarian orthodoxy of the period. Hawkesby moved to Tokyo in 1984. Returning to Auckland in the early 1990s, he ran the iconic Alleluya café in St Kevin’s Arcade for two decades before returning to full-time ceramic making in 2015. Scratch a Cenotaph, his first exhibition after this long hiatus, was held at Anna Miles Gallery in 2018.

Since then Hawkesby’s production has been prolific, picking up where he left off almost 30 years earlier. His major exhibition Tender Brick: The Material Epiphanies of Peter Hawkesby, curated by Richard Fahey for Objectspace in 2020, toured to Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui (2021) and CoCA Toi Moroki, Ōtautahi Christchurch (2022). He subsequently relocated to Ōtepoti Dunedin, where he continues to work. Earlier this year his first exhibition at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Suite 2026: Heart Basket and Other Work, opened. His work is held in public and private collections including Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, The Chartwell Collection, Dowse Art Museum, MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand and Tūhura Otago Museum.

Reece King, born 1989, grew up at Te Henga on the west coast of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. A painter and wrangler of restless form, King was awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at the University of Otago Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka in 2025. His post-fellowship exhibition, The Ogee & Manaia, at Hocken Collections in 2026, took its title from hundreds of observations recorded in his studio notebook and the shared curvilinear form of an architectural ogee and manaia, a spiritual guardian figure.

King completed a Master of Design in Painting at Unitec Te Whare Wānanga o Wairaka in 2021. He was a founder of Sanc, the painter-run space that operated in Tāmaki Makaurau from 2020–2023. He has received the Eden Arts Karekare House Residency and the inaugural Church Road Art Initiative. His work was included in Aotearoa Contemporary, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2024), and is held in the collections of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri and Uare Taoka o Hākena Hocken Collections.

Tyrone Te Waa (Ngāti Tūwharetoa), born 1992, works across scales, from body adornment to installation. He likens his preparations for art-making to foraging before cooking, gathering found or gifted materials that are bound, knotted, felted and wrapped. In late 2026 his first work in bronze will open on the North Terrace of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, supported by the Chartwell Trust and the Contemporary Benefactors of Auckland Art Gallery.

In 2021 Te Waa completed a Master of Creative Practice at Unitec Te Whare Wānanga o Wairaka. In 2022 he received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Te Tumu Toi Springboard Award. Recent exhibitions include Essential Oils, Toi Tauranga Art Gallery (2025–26); He Ao Āpōpō, He Ao Tea: Māori Futures, Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui (2026); Te Rūma Moenga / The Mattress Room (Memory Foam), Casula Powerhouse, Sydney (2024); How to Make a Home, Objectspace (2024); Aotearoa Contemporary, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2024); and Whetūrangitia / Made As Stars, Dowse Art Museum (2022).