For his inaugural exhibition with the Gow Langsford, Brett Graham presents a reimagining of the 1840s home of Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, the first Māori King, who lived overlooking Onehunga Beach and the Manukau Harbour near the gallery’s present site. The installation takes this historical dwelling as both reference point and conceptual structure, bringing together architecture, memory and whakapapa.

Structured from tī kōuka (cabbage tree) leaves, the work forms elements of a whare while carrying associations with urupā, endurance and remembrance. The material is gathered and transformed through labour-intensive processes, creating a spatial environment that functions simultaneously as sculpture, shelter and memorial.

Developed in the wake of the deaths of the artist’s parents and senior Māori artists who shaped his practice — including Selwyn Muru — Doorway to Night operates as both dedication and poroporoaki. The exhibition binds personal and collective histories within a space that is at once offering, remembrance and architectural gesture.

The carved pare and structural elements of the whare also draw on driftwood sourced from Port Waikato, where Graham connects the act of carving (whakairo) to natural processes of erosion and transformation. In doing so, the work situates materiality as both historical record and living process.