Darcy Nicholas
Contemporary Maori Artist

Maori art covers a broad vision ranging from the rural to the urban, to the international. All have validity if only because they express the human spirit in its varying levels of depth. The definition of what is Maori in some quarters is as intangible as a definition of art.

Being a creative Maori artist has five levels, or what I call the five visionary eyes. There are the two eyes in which we view the world around us, then a third eye which searches into the forgotten memories from childhood to adulthood, a forth eye searches into the depth of our ancestral culture, and the fifth eye is the eye of eternity that sees all things. Most artists do not go beyond the first two eyes. The best go further and their art has a personality, a life, history, and a spirit.