Our Profile

In December 2015 Marty was made redundant after 28 years as a Senior Printmaking Tutor in Whanganui UCOL.  In February 2016, wasting no time, he and his wife Marilyn launched Pakohe Papers Ltd,  a small whanau (family) business specialising in designing and manufacturing Māori Educational Resources for Early Childhood Establishments throughout the country.  They had already successfully established a thriving Harakeke Paper production for the arts and craft communities and it was time to expand.

Born in Hamilton Marty is of Dutch descent and has a national and international artists’ profile contributing to New Zealand Printmaking for over 40 years.  He was the co-founder and inaugural President of the Central Print Council of New Zealand and was made a life member of the Print Council on his retirement as president.

Over the years Marty has won a bevy of awards and accolades including the Prime Ministers Supreme, Ako Aotearoa Award for the best Tertiary Teacher in New Zealand.  As a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship he travelled to Pendleton, USA for a residency at Crowes Shadow Institute and a Nuffield Foundation Scholarship enabled him to travel throughout England and Scotland to research Printmaking and Papermaking.  Marty has had over 80 exhibitions nationally and internationally over the last 35 years.

Marilyn Ngahuia Vreede is extremely proud to be Māori.  She has devoted the past thirty-five years of her life to teaching and celebrating the inherent beauty within the traditions and to allay any misunderstandings between our diverse cultures.

While Marty’s national profile is as an artist, Marilyn has a national profile as a facilitator in Māori Health programmes and Rongoā Māori (Māori Medicine).  As one of two Whanganui trustees on the national Te Kāhui Rongoā Trust and a guest speaker for Tipu Ora Private Training Establishment, based in Rotorua, she regularly travels around the country delivering Māori Health and Rongoā presentations in both the National Certificate and National Diploma in Whānau Ora.  Her artistic contribution may not be as extensive as Marty’s but she enjoys painting and designing jigsaw puzzles for all preschool children.  She takes great pleasure in making artists books and creating unique, bespoke, boxed whakapapa (genealogy) and wedding albums.  She is also a contributing artist to the Manawa Ora Whanganui Collective of Māori artists.