Koru and kowhaiwhai in New Zealand painting.

New Zealand has a long history of Eurocentric appropriation and assimilation that has led koru and kowhaiwhai to become signifiers both of New Zealand Art and more widely New Zealand. It began with Sydney Parkinson's drawings of kowhaiwhai painted paddles produced during Captain Cook's 1769 voyage and continued to the present day with an excess of koru motifs advertising logos. Since the politically engaged 1980's this appropriation of motifs by Pakeha artists have spurned great debate …

…Space Between:Pakeha Use of Maori Motifs in Modernist New Zealand Art, Auckland, Workshop Press, 1994 Schoon. Theo, Maori Rock Drawings, Christchurch: Robert McDougall Art Gallery: Christchurch City Council, 1985 Skinner, Damian, Theo Schoon's interaction with Aspects of Maori Art, Thesis for MA Art History, Auckland: University of Auckland, 1996 Skinner. Damien, Theo Schoon: Photographs and drawings, Auckland: John Leech Gallery, 2002 Te Awekotuku.Ngahuia, 'Ngahuia Te Awekotuku in Conversation with Elizabeth Eastmond and Pricilla Pitts', Antic, Issue 1, June 1986