Works by contemporary Niuean artists
With assistance from the South Pacific Arts Committee of Te Waka Toi and in conjunction with the Pakuranga Community Centre.
This exhibition brings together a selection of recent works by contemporary Niuean artists currently working in Auckland and Manukau City.
The artists include Sale Jessop, Palalagi Manetoa, John Pule, Lape Tulisi, David Tutavaha, Jenny Tutavaha, and Glenda Visiloni.
The exhibition will be the first time that a group of works by contemporary Niuean artists will have been brought together to assess and acknowledge their current achievements.
This group of early career artists are currently making a significant contribution to contemporary artmaking.
A couple of these artists such as John Pule and Sale Jessop have exhibited more widely in exhibitions throughout the country. But as a group, as they work, they have not yet had the opportunity to present their work together in a gallery venue.
Many of the artists derive the motifs of their work from various sources as John Pule remarked, ‘The symbols and motifs you see in my works are my own personal and collective substances deriving from a religious and poetic foundation, formed, swirled, gathered and electrified from studying the intelligence of Polynesian and Melanesian tapa.’
Ephemera
→ Tunga Ne Havilia e Ahua Afi, 1992, exhibition card