MOANA ARTS PROFILE - PATI SOLOMONA TYRELL

"I don't make art for galleries, I make art for myself.  I'm just answering questions for myself that I need to explore, something that's weighing heavy on me.  I find it a healing process" - Pati Solomona Tyrell 

Winner of the 2020 Creative NZ Pasifika Arts 'Emerging Pacific Artist Award 

Pati Tyrell is a Samoan interdisciplinary artist with a strong focus on performance. Utilizing lens-based media he creates visual outcomes that are cantered around urban Pacific queer identity.

He has shown work at Museum of Contemporary Arts Australia, Pingyao International Photography Festival, Centre Pompidou Paris and was a 2018 Walters Prize nominee. Tyrell is a co-founder of the queer Pasifika arts collective FAFSWAG, who in 2020 received an Arts Foundation Laureate.

Pati is a pioneering member of the New Zealand ballroom scene, father to the House of Aitu where he continues to build and mobilize his community. He is a graduate of the Bachelor of Creative Arts programme at the Manukau Institute of Technology, Otara.

Pati is originally from Kirikiriroa, Waikato but is now based in Maungarei, Tāmaki Makaurau.