SAUNIGA Exhibition
Sauniga - Curated by Jodi Meadows, was a group exhibition featuring three incredible Pasifika artists, Saint Andrew Matautia, Pati Solomona Tyrell and Uelese Vavae. Each artist incorporated portraiture as a mode to reflect their communities and their own identities.
Check out more from these artists:
Through different mediums, each artist used Pasifika portraiture as a high impact storytelling device. Whether it be a reflection of the artists lived experience, or a commentary on wider pacific issues & realities, Sauniga was a dynamic display of compelling storytelling.
Uelese Vavae - Faletua
Uelese's series 'Faletua' (minister's wife)- includes five large paintings of Samoan women in formal dress. The paintings command space and attention, their size and hyper-realistic style have an eerie presence. The paintings beg viewers to question the lives and stories these Faletua hold. Who are they? What are they thinking? Uelese's intention was to ask the audience if they perceived the formal western attire out of place on brown bodies. The series addresses the birth of Christian conservatism in the Pacific Islands and how the western world has infiltrated the Samoan church community.
"My motivations behind the series 'Faletua' begin from my upbringing, as I am the son of a Faifeau (reverend) and Faletua (reverends wife). I have always found it interesting how we as Samoan church goers dwell between cultural and religious customs to break even in creating unique traditions. One of these traditions is worn, which is our church attire, in my opinion; most notable with Faletua." - Vavae
"I think it's important to share our pacific culture and ideologies to preserve these things and also to mark a point in history of how contemporary Pasifika art has moved forward. Pasifika Contemporary artists are further pushing boundaries and also questioning and challenging their own cultures to present ideologies in a way that is unique."
"I want the series to speak about the clashes in culture and religion through the celebration of it. I want audiences to see the ever present western influence which is a constant in my culture, but also see that the work is a double edged sword as I the artist yield a shift in power through emulating European Neoclassical portraiture."
Uelese said each painting took him at least 3 full days of painting, and the entire series was completed in 3 weeks. Vavae hopes to continue Faletua into a larger continious series.
Pati Solomona Tyrell
Left - 'Afi' (2016) Right - 'Eleele' (2016) By Pati Solomona Tyrell
Performance artist and photographer Pati Solomona Tyrell uses portraiture as a means to recreate a history where the presence of LGBTQ communities are celebrated and thriving. As a founding member of FAF SWAG (a collective of brown queer creatives), the subjects of Tyrell's images are either himself or those from his FAF SWAG community.
Left - 'Vai' (2016) Right - 'Kelekele' (2016) By Pati Solomona Tyrell
Tyrell uses a haunting aesthetic with dramatic lighting to capture the essence of each constructed subject. The series tells an important and crucial story about the lack of queer brown representation in colonial history, aswell as speaking to themes of identity and sexuality. This mode of portraiture sparks such an important conversation about sexuality, espeicially within the Pacific community where there tends to be a lack of discussion around sexuality and sexual identity.
"The series is about reclaiming that mana in a modern context through a visual language that derives from my own practice and world view." Never seeing himself reflected in mainstream media growing up, Tyrell said he uses portraiture as a way to 'take contol'.
"It's just about trying to create stuff that I wanted to see when I was growing up...There's a whole thing around invisibility and just for other queer people to see themselves within my work or other queer artists work." - Pati Solomona Tyrell.
Saint Andrew Matautia
Photographer Andrew Matautia presents a series of portraits that reflect Matautia's journey through the tertiary education system, and speaks to moments of strength and courage found through Fa'a Samoa that helped him on his journey.
"Traditional portraiture tells the story or extends the knowledge by placing keys and signifiers within the work to compliment, contrast or act as counterpoints to the person featured in the work. My works are no different. Each cloth, headpiece, flywhisk, feather, body position, fine mat, tapa or necklace offers opportunity for insight and interpretation to and of these visual expressions of this journey." - Matautia.
Each image acts as a response to certain issues and aims that arose during Matautia's project research. "Informed by my cultural roots as a Samoan migrant and Māhina’s tā-vā theory, these images depict and characterize connections through both time and space."
Matautia also uses portraiture as a means to express themes of Pasifika dance, song and traditional ceremonial practises. Passionate about his culture, and aware of the excessive presentation of Pacific culture through a westernised lens, Matautia feels a sense of duty to tell Pasifika stories from a Pasifika lense.
"As I have argued, storytellers and visual communicators with a traditionally holistic approach to the connections made between humans and humans and humans and things, Moana peoples have much to offer the world of design." - Matautia.
"Portraiture is used as a process to explore their individual cultural identity but also as a mechanism to subvert and challenge the ways that we see culture in everyday content, encompassing both island and urban experience." - Jodi Meadows (curator).
Sauniga was an extremely impressive collection of works by Matautia, Tyrell and Vavae, who have all recently emerged from tertiary environments and are beggining to navigate through the contemprary art world. The generosity shown by each artist is invaluable, as are the stories told through these portraits.
Sauniga exhibited in the ICL Building on Lorne St from the 4th March - 1st April.