Tui Emma Gillies

Artisan Retail

I am an Aotearoa Tongan artist specialising in tapa art. My work mixes contemporary with traditional and can be challenging, confronting and controversial… but always with respect to the roots of the medium and the ancestors who practised it before me. I also work a lot alongside my mother Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows as a mother-daughter tapa duo.

I have exhibited in New Zealand, Tonga, Australia, UK, America and presented about my art overseas including Austria, Hawai’i, Spain, Tonga and Australia. I received the Creative New Zealand Pacific Heritage Award in 2018. I have works in collections around the world including The National Maritime Museum, Auckland War Memorial Museum, GRASSI museum in Germany, National Gallery of Victory in Melbourne and Pick Museum of Anthropology in Illinois, USA.