Wellington artists put final touches on Matariki-inspired mural

A collective of Wellington artists have put the final touches on a larger-scale mural inspired by the stars of Matariki.

Dreamgirls Art Collective, made up of artists Miriama Grace-Smith, Xoë Hall and Gina Kiel, collaborated with jewellery brand Pandora to create the mural at the intersection of Ghuznee and Leeds Streets in central Wellington.

Miriama Grace-Smith (Ngāti Toa, Ngāpuhi, Te Arawa, Ngāti Porou) said it was important to them that the collaboration celebrated Matariki in some form.

"Then we thought of the idea of the parts of the wahine in the mural being elements of being a star. So there's parts in the mural that are elements of each star," Grace-Smith said.

The artwork depicts a modern wahine from Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington surrounded by symbols inspired by each of the nine stars and their unique meanings.

"We all are from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, so the wahine in the mural, she's inspired a lot from our creative mates especially, like, the modern Māori mates that are... living in between the past and present as, like, confident Māori in the city.

"Originally the name we were hoping that we were going to call her, the mural, was 'Slay in the City', but I'm not sure that worked well with the Pandora vibes," Grace-Smith said.

Gina Kiel hopes the mural adds vibrancy and colour to the area.

"Hopefully it makes people take a bit of time to look for [the stars] and figure out what parts mean what, because... for people who don't know about Matariki, there'll be some learning."

"It's quite like, you know, about empowerment for wāhine as well. So we do hope that any wāhine that walk past the mural feel inspired and empowered, and maybe see a bit of themselves in it," added Xoë Hall (Kai Tahu).

Inspired by the artwork, Dreamgirls and Pandora have also created a collection of nine charms, for the nine stars of the Matariki cluster, each with a different symbol from the mural.

"Usually they're engraved charms, but I think [Pandora] could see with our work how colourful our work is... which is another really cool thing about the collab, they went away and did some mahi in the background to make it even better, to, I guess, represent our work even better on the charms, bringing the colour in," Kiel said.

The Wellington based trio have been working together about six years and Kiel said this is one of their biggest projects to date.

"I think it'll probably be the project that's sort of spreads the farthest, you know, in terms of people seeing it who maybe didn't know about us before."

As a collective, they plan to just keep on going for a long time to come, she said.

"If we continue to get opportunities that allow us to continue to collaborate, I can't see us ever stopping."

Hall said they have decided to just take on one big project a year as a collective, in an effort to ensure they don't burn out.

"Because we are really good friends as well, it's important we stay friends," added Grace-Smith.