OREXART. Oedipus Rex Gallery. Auckland, New Zealand.

Couch uses her work to explore her Maoritanga, mapping her cultural identity and history through painting and printmaking. Her delicate, finely detailed works draw on both ancient customs and more contemporary artistic practice, employing both traditional and contemporary patterns and motifs.

The works from Couch's most recent exhibition, Te Hue, take as their starting point the image of the gourd (te hue). With a rich history as a cultural and mythological symbol, the full, curving shape of the gourd recurs through the works in various forms, a repeated motif that is also each time transformed.