Gary Baseman’s Memento Moa is a tribute to those things that were loved and lost

An Emmy award-winning Los Angeles artist has opened a quirky multi-media exhibition in New Zealand as a unique tribute to his late cousin. Gary Baseman is a prolific artist who has produced a massive body of work over the past 45 years, including designing the artwork for the board game Cranium , and creating the animated TV series Teacher’s Pet that received several Emmy awards and a Bafta. The inspiration for his latest exhibition Memento Moa in Taupō came from his cousin Beverly, who he grew up with as a child in LA.

Playing off the phrase ‘memento mori’ which expresses the inevitability of death, the Californian artist reimagines Aotearoa as a land of rebirth and harmony, bringing back the giant moa from extinction to symbolise those loved and now lost. Beverly was five years older than Baseman but they lived less than a block away from each other and were very close..