Saffronn Te Ratana (Ngāi Tūhoe) is the granddaughter of the late painter Janet Hutchings and daughter of Māori artist Donn Ratana. Raised within a creative whānau she has always identified as a painter and held her first solo exhibition in 1990 at Janice Hill Gallery, Hamilton.
Over the past three decades, Te Ratana has exhibited extensively throughout Aotearoa and internationally developing a practice that contributes to the visual and conceptual understandings of Toi Māori. Her work creates space for new expressions within contemporary Māori painting, examining the possibilities of what Māori painting can be. Alongside artists such as Star Gossage and Charlotte Graham, Te Ratana represents an important generational continuation of a legacy established by pioneering Māori women painters, including Kura Te Waru Rewiri and the late Robyn Kahukiwa.
Central to Te Ratana's practice is a sustained investigation of Māori cosmologies, tribal histories, and the relationships between people and whenua. This focus became a significant component of her Masters of Māori Visual Arts research in 2000-2003, when she undertook an in-depth study of Māori cosmological narratives. During this period, she exhibited in Purangiaho: Seeing Clearly (2001) at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Taiāwhio: Continuity and Change (2002) at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, numerous Ferner Gallery exhibitions, and was selected for the Biennale de Nouméa d'Art Contemporain at the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in New Caledonia in 2001. It was also during this time that Te Ratana developed a distinctive painting language based on layered mark-making and a coded visual system for interpreting cosmological narratives.
The visual foundations underpinning Ngāhere can be traced back to a series of significant exhibitions, including New Works (2006) and Ngā Hanga Whakaaro (2007) at Thermostat Gallery with curator Catherine Russ, and Pepeha at The Suter Art Gallery, Nelson (2009) with curator Anna Marie-White. Through this body of work, Te Ratana began deconstructing conventional approaches to painting and repositioning her practice in relation to Papatūānuku. She investigated the origins of painting within Māori cosmology, considering the sources of pigments such as kōkōwai and the interconnected relationships between environment, material, process, implements, and visual culture. This inquiry marked a shift away from painting within the two-dimensional picture plane towards painting through sculptural and spatial forms, reimagining the conventions of painting while remaining grounded in Māori narrative and the painted histories of Tūhoe.
These explorations were followed by a series of major collaborative projects. In 2008, the Tū Te Manu Ora i Te Rangi installation at Thermostat Gallery brought Te Ratana together with artists Hemi MacGregor and Ngataiharuru Taepa, while also marking her first collaboration with Tūhoe kōkōrangi, Rangi Mātāmua, whose research into Māori astronomy continues to inform her practice. In 2011, Te Ratana again collaborated with Taepa and MacGregor on the Ka Kata Te Pō installation at Te Manawa Art Gallery, Palmerston North. The work was recreated as a site-specific installation for the 5th Auckland Triennial in 2013, curated by Hou Hanru, and exhibited in the Auckland Art Gallery.
An important aspect of Te Ratana's practice has been her contribution to iwi-led projects, marae-based commissions, and her involvement with Te Atinga Māori Visual Arts gatherings facilitated by elders such as Sandy Adsett, June Grant, the late Manos Nathan, and Coleen Urlich. In 2002, she created works for Taharora Marae under the guidance of artist and kaumātua Robert Jahnke. In 2014, she was invited by her iwi to contribute to Te Uru Taumatua, the Tūhoe tribal whare in Tāneatua and between 2015-2021, Te Ratana completed a major body of work for the peka (ceiling panels) of Te Rau Karamū Marae on Pukeahu, Wellington.
More recently, Te Ratana was commissioned to create an installation work for Sharjah Biennial 2025 as part of the Aotearoa delegation curated by Megan Tamati-Quennell. The work, Purapura Whetū, explored seasonal narratives associated with the maramataka Māori and the relationship between Indigenous and scientific understandings of celestial bodies. In 2026, Purapura Whetū was recreated and installed in the exhibition Tātai Tuarangi: Star Seeds, Sound Waves and Ceremonies at the Wairau Art Gallery, Whangārei.