Tarisse King – Aotearoa, Family & Returning Home
A leading voice in contemporary Aboriginal art, Tarisse King has lived in Aotearoa New Zealand for the past 13 years. Alongside her sister, Sarrita King, she continues the legacy of their late father, the respected Gurindji artist William King Jungala. Her highly sought after works are widely exhibited in Australia and internationally, with pieces held in significant collections.
Ahead of her upcoming exhibition at Japingka, Tarisse reflects on life in Aotearoa, family and legacy, and her plans to return home to Darwin.
Tarisse, you've lived in New Zealand for years now. Was there a moment when it felt like home?
Yes, it definitely feels like home because I've had my last four children here and we've got a really beautiful community. We moved to New Zealand because my ex-partner is Māori. His schooling was at a kura where they only speak Te Reo Māori and now my children have been able to do the same. Through all their schooling Te Reo Māori is their primary learning language. We don't have that in Australia. Even the remote communities are taught in English.
Aotearoa has felt like home for a very long time, 13 years to be exact. We love living here but we are moving back to Darwin at the beginning of 2028. Our eldest daughter wants to go through a university there to be a doctor and then go out and work remotely. It's beautiful here but I can't wait to go home, to be honest, and have my children have a foot in both their communities.
You talk about educating children with stories of heritage and passing down your cultural knowledge. How are your five children engaging with your stories and cultural knowledge, especially now living in New Zealand?
I think because I paint pretty much every single day, they've been surrounded by our culture every day. That was the same for me in missing my family. Even though I missed them, I was able to keep my dad, who's actually passed away now, close through painting. So that's something that they've been a part of from when they were born, whether it be helping me or rolling through a wet painting. We’ve been able to teach them a lot about my culture through my art. My art is probably the one thing that has been a saviour for me while being away from family.
Has living and working abroad changed your art or the way you go about making it?
Probably not living abroad. It's beautiful here, but I still only paint my home country, I don't paint Aotearoa. I've definitely evolved as an artist, but it wouldn't necessarily be from living here. It's more so from being a mum and going through different life stages, because I moved here when I was 26 and now I'm almost 40.
If anything, living here has affected me more personally. I'm very independent now. A lot of people have only ever lived in their own town but I moved countries, with no support. I've been able to go through cycles of more discernment in life, moving away and having to make a whole new friendship groups. To a certain degree, we've also been able to really concentrate on our family because we don't have the outside noise of heaps of our family around us. It means that we've been able to just look after our own little small unit more.
Have you noticed any surprising similarities or differences between Australia and Aotearoa or the culture you’re now surrounded by?
Definitely. That’s why I love it here because Māori are so staunch in who they are, and they've been able to keep their cultural protocols alive. If anything, it has lit a fire to maintain closeness with my own culture.
I want to take my kids home so that they can see the differences for themselves. The disparity even with the way that our mob are treated at home in comparison to here because Aotearoa has a treaty, and that's something that we don't have in Australia.
Everywhere that we are here uses Te Reo Māori. Like street names, and you find non Māori people who use Te Reo Māori. We don't really have that back home. So there's a lot of politics and whatnot going on at home, but that's why I'm excited to go back and take some of the learnings from here back home and to our mob.
Have there been any challenges to keeping your art practice alive?
Sarrita and I have always had our own really unique style when it comes to painting. So we're lucky enough that we've always had really good demand for what we do. I feel like our style and everything is really unique to us and our family.
There are challenges with the cost of living and art being a luxury item. And even just sending the art back to Australia as it’s like $300 a package, so it's quite expensive. With the art scene it always feels like, oh my gosh, is it gonna collapse one day? But I'm here 20 years later still painting, so I think it's probably time for me to put that little anxiety to bed.
People really love what we're doing, so we've been really lucky.
Have you found that the community in Aotearoa have been very receptive to your art?
I pretty much don't sell art here. Because I'm Indigenous, I don't wanna take up space where Māori are prevalent, but in saying that I’ve been a part of some exhibitions and sold a couple of pieces to my friends and whatnot, but, I am always really aware of my place.
It’s been really inclusive and a lot of people have asked me to be a lot more involved but even in Australia, the art scene, like the cliqueiness and all that kind of stuff, isn't for me either. I love the creating side of my art, not the selling of it.
If someone is discovering your art for the first time in 2026, what do you want them to know?
Oh, I like that question! I want them to know that we are second generation artists. That we were taught by our dad and that our artwork is a reflection of our perspective of the world. So it's not necessarily a Birds eye view of an exact space when I paint earth images, it's my perspective.
As contemporary artists, we don't do anything traditional. So if they're looking for traditional stories from community, that's for the community mob that still lives there and are still present to be creating. We do it in the way our Dad taught us and that was really about connection to country, connection to mob and being the caretakers of the land, the changes of the season and things like that.
So at the moment and in the Japingka exhibition there's a couple of pieces that are actually my perspective of the galaxy.
Like I wrote here, for one of my pieces;
“Obsessed with my own point of view. My ancestors' blood is my blood and sometimes I feel like I see the stars from their perspective, when our country wasn't colonised and the skies weren't polluted. Imagine falling asleep to the galaxy.”
Because sometimes I think that the only places that you could ever see the stars properly anymore is out on country where it hasn't been made into cities and there's no pollution. And I sometimes think when I'm painting, what would the stars have looked like? When there was nothing here, but us existing.
That’s part of who we are.
I would also want people to know that I love being Aboriginal. I grew up being Indigenous, and I've always known my Blak side of our family.
And I think people need more discernment when they're purchasing Aboriginal artwork now. It is quite hard to tell the difference between an Instagram artist and authentic fine artists. And I feel like people don't understand that.
And there's a really big difference between us. Not to be inclusive and exclusive, but we've been taught by our family. This is our legacy. Our family stories and stories of country that have been passed down by our dad.
This is not like one day wanting to feel connected to being Aboriginal and picking up an art brush and painting something similar to something that I've seen online. These are stories from our family and our life. Sarrita and I are really passionate about what we're doing and maintaining the integrity of the Aboriginal art space.
I would also want them to know that they will love our art forever if they have it in their home. They're so detailed that every time you look at it, there's something else to see, there's something else to discover and that's the multi-layers of the story. It's like the layers of our generations.
There’s a lot of storytelling going on and that's the hardest thing when people buy our artwork, that they don't necessarily have access to us where they can get into the whole back and forth of asking questions about the piece. But they can reach out on instagram if they want to know more about art that they might buy.
You often talk about the hopefulness of the future. What is something you’re excited about right now?
Definitely the next stage of life. It even makes me feel emotional because our twins have just turned five and they're our last children. They're much more independent now as they’re getting older and we're planning to move back home.
I'm really excited to go home. Especially while our old people are still alive and we can learn more. I'm turning 40 this year so I'm getting older and some people think they know it all and they've experienced it all. But I'm not one of those people. I can't wait to go home and learn more, discover more and just go out and be on country. I feel like that will definitely lend itself to my art and also to my family.
I hope one of my children wants to be an artist. I don't push anything on them, but I’m really so hopeful for it all the time. It would be a shame for me to spend my whole life dedicated to my craft and not have anybody to pass this down to. It could be one of my grandchildren, you never know, but yeah, I'm really hopeful.
I’m also excited to be moving back home and hopefully being able to put some of the things that we've learned from Māori into the mix for our own mob. To strengthen our culture and identity and hold on close to the old ways and traditions we have as a people that make us Aboriginal. I think when you're Indigenous, it's really important to get to the core of what we have that makes us special and unique, and make sure that you keep that fire alive and burning for the generations to come. Because if we don't prioritise that and think it's important, it won't be important for our children and our grandchildren. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to moving home, and being able to put a lot of these things into play for my own family.
Is there anything else you’d like people to know about your upcoming exhibition at Japingka?
I’d like to tell people to come down and see the exhibition. Japingka is such a beautiful space and I feel really grateful to have this opportunity to exhibit with them again. We have worked with them for years and the gallerists are really passionate and knowledgeable. I'm looking forward to seeing the show.
