'The painting of Emily Karaka is cross-cultural. Her paintings have a strong neo-expressionist quality not unlike Philip Clairmont or Allen Maddox. Her debt to McCahon is acknowledged in her painting Race Relations Triptych, 1988, where his name is scrawled in red under a skeleton figure made of ox bones. The sense of oppression and of being a victim comes through in this panel. The variant of McCahon’s ‘I Am’ lettering at the right appears as a tribute to McCahon and as a criticism of Christianity, also acknowledged in the cross-shape of the central section. Karaka takes signs of anger – gesture, symbols and words – from European art to protest against values oppressive to Māori people, in her case there is more of an emotional response to the forms and meanings of traditional Māori art.'
Michael Dunn, New Zealand Painting: A Concise History, p.193