This pare is carved in kauri.

“As [John Bevan Ford] indicates, Māori Artists of the South Pacific legitimises a range of different practices by including them within its pages.[1] Along with writers and weavers, the book includes work by customary carvers Pakariki Harrison and Tuti Tukaokao as well as art works by Maori Modernists such as Buck Nin and Paratene Matchitt. Indeed, it is not just the inclusion of such a diverse and, from the perspective of Maori Modernism, odd group that is notable in Maori Artists of the South Pacific. The relationship established in works such as Matchitt’s Pare [PAH emphasis] are dramatically different from the practice of Māori Modernism described in this book. While different in its aesthetic effects to a pare as it might be created by Hone Taiapa, for example, Matchitt’s sculpture in its positioning and form has all the necessary features to function as a kind of modern pare, replicating the effects and meanings of the pare as a carving marking a threshold. While Ford articulates a conceptual shift that effectively transforms Maori Modernism into something else, the art works themselves have also been, in certain critical ways, transformed. This something else is Contemporary Maori Art.”

~ quoted from Damian Skinner. The Carver and the Artist : Māori Art in the Twentieth Century. Auckland University Press 2008 : 129.

[1] Mataira Katarina and New Zealand Maori Artists and Writers (Society). Māori Artists of the South Pacific. New Zealand Māori Artists & Writers Society 1984.