Fatu Feu'u | |
|---|---|
 Feu'u in 2022 | |
| Born | Fatu Akelei Feu'u 1946 (age 77–78) |
| Known for | painting, sculpture |
Fatu Akelei Feu'u ONZM (born 1946) is a noted Samoan painter from the village of Poutasi in the district of Falealili in Samoa. He has established a reputation as the elder statesman of Pacific art in New Zealand. [1]
Feu'u emigrated to New Zealand in 1966 after growing up in the village of Poutasi, Western Samoa. [2] He always wanted to be an artist and noted the difference of how art was viewed between Samoa and New Zealand, with 'beautifully made, functional canoes and houses' being art in Samoa and in New Zealand art was 'something extra special not to be touched'. [3]
Feu'u has been an exhibiting artist since the early 1980s and became a full-time artist in 1988, prior to that he worked as a designer and colour advisor for textile and car companies. [3] He was influenced and mentored by artists Tony Fomison, Pat Hanly and Philip Clairmont. [3]
In 1995 he became the first artist of Pacific heritage awarded the James Wallace Art Award. [2] He was appointed an Honorary Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2001 New Year Honours. [4] In 2022 he received the Senior Pacific Artist Award at the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards. [2] Feu'u is 'pivotal in shaping the interest in contemporary Pacific art globally and nurturing a generation of Pacific artists locally'. [2] Artist Dagmar Dyck recalls the influence he made on her in as he invited her into a Pasfika artist community near the end of her studies in 1993 at Elam art school in Auckland. [5]
This act of recruitment, mentorship and collectivism was typical of the early beginnings of Fatu’s vision for contemporary Pacific arts. (Dagmar Dyck) [5]
Feu'u has exhibited in numerous exhibitions in New Zealand and internationally with works in national and private collections worldwide. He has exhibited in solo and major group exhibitions including Samoa Contemporary (2008) at Pataka Art + Museum in Porirua, and Fa'atasi (2022) at Bergman Gallery in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. [6]
Feu'u's work was included in two groundbreaking exhibitions of contemporary Pacific art: Te Moemoea no Iotefa , curated by Rangihiroa Panaho for the Sarjeant Art Gallery in 1990 and Bottled Ocean curated by Jim Viviaeare, which toured New Zealand in 1994–1995.
Feu'u was part of the major group exhibition Le Folauga: the past coming forward – Contemporary Pacific Art from Aotearoa New Zealand, at the Auckland Museum. [7] Le Folauga later toured to Taiwan and became the first exhibition of contemporary Pacific art from New Zealand to be shown in a major fine arts museum in Asia. [8] Le Folauga opened at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan from 13 December 2008 to 5 April 2009.
Feu'u's work is included in a number of prestigious national and international collections including the National Gallery, Brisbane; Auckland Art Gallery; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington and Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton. His work is also included in an extensive number of private collections in New Zealand, Australia, United States of America, England, Holland, American Samoa, Samoa and Japan.
Inside the New Zealand Parliament, the entrance to The Pacific Room is designed by Ian George, and the wooden carving was carved by four carvers from the South Pacific, Ian George from Cook Islands, Fatu Feu'u from Samoa, Filipe Tohi from Tonga, and Palalagi Manetoa from Niue, about how Pacific peoples from those islands came to New Zealand and made the new country home. [9]
Two large wood and paint sculptures are found in Auckland. Ole Alia outside the Massey Library and Leisure Centre [10] and Unititled [11] marks the entrance to the South Auckland suburb of Ōtara. Feu'u was commissioned in 2007 by the Waitakere City Council to create an artwork representing the Pasifika community of West Auckland. The artwork spent 12 months to create, and was unveiled at the Henderson railway station over-bridge in 2009. [12]
While primarily a painter, Feu'u explores a range of other mediums including bronze, wood and stone sculpture, pottery design, lithographs, woodcuts and glass works (both stained and etched).
Feu'u's work is inspired by Polynesian art forms such as siapo (tapa cloth), tatau (tattoo), weaving, carving and ceremonial mask making. [13] In these forms he uses a rich lexicon of motifs and compositional structures. His works frequently blend traditional and contemporary elements, incorporating a range of influences, inspirations, techniques and motifs from Samoa and Aotearoa and more generally from Euro-American to Pacific cultures. [13]
Fa'asamoa is the unifying element of Feu'u's work. The term fa'asamoa is generally defined as 'the Samoan way'. The social structure of Samoan society is held together and actively maintained by an adherence to unwritten but understood cultural conventions embodied in fa'asamoa which binds family networks to traditional customs and ceremonies.
Tautai Pacific Arts Trust, an organisation of contemporary Pacific artists in New Zealand, was founded in the 1980s as an informal network from an initiative by Feu'u and artist friends. This group shared a goal of mutual support for the promotion of Pacific visual art artists, at a time when Pacific art was in the very early stages of recognition as a particular genre. [14] In 2005, Tautai celebrated its 10th anniversary as a formalised organisation. Members include other established Pacific artists such as painter and sculptor Johnny Penisula, multi-media artist Shigeyuki Kihara and Michel Tuffery. By 2022 the Tautai Pacific Arts Trust is considered a leading Pacific arts organisation, the director is Aanoalii Rowena Fuluifaga and the premises are on Karangahape Road in Auckland. [15] [16] [17]
In December 2022 Feu'u was a recipient of the New Zealand Arts Icon Award Whakamana Hiranga, which makes him one of twenty current living cultural icons. [18]
Shigeyuki "Yuki" Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Samoan descent. In 2008, her work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; it was the first time a New Zealander and the first time a Pacific Islander had a solo show at the institution. Titled Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs, the exhibition opened from 7 October 2008 to 1 February 2009. Kihara's self-portrait photographs in the exhibitions included nudes in poses that portrayed colonial images of Polynesian people as sexual objects. Her exhibition was followed by an acquisition of Kihara's work for the museum's collection.
Lily Aitui Laita was an artist and art educator in New Zealand. Laita was of mixed Pākehā and Māori ancestry, as well as of Samoan descent. Laita was known for using Māori, English and Samoan texts in her paintings.
Poutasi is a village on the south east coast of Upolu island in Samoa. The population is 395. The village is part of Falealili Electoral Constituency in the larger political district of Atua. Poutasi was extensively damaged by the 2009 Samoa earthquake and tsunami.
Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi is a Tongan artist who has lived in New Zealand since 1978. He has exhibited in major exhibitions in New Zealand and abroad. Several major collections include his work. The 2010 Art and Asia Pacific Almanac describes him as "Tongan art's foremost ambassador".
Te Moemoea no Iotefa was the first exhibition held in a civic art gallery in New Zealand focused on contemporary Pacific art.
Dagmar Vaikalafi Dyck is a New Zealand artist of Tongan and German descent. Dyck's prints and paintings are often inspired by her cultural heritage and explore textile practices of Tonga. In 2012, Dyck was co-curator of No'o fakataha, a group exhibition of Tongan artists. Dyck's inspirations come from Tonga’s textiles arts, which includes bark cloth, mats, baskets and clothes.
Ioane Ioane is a New Zealand artist of Samoan descent. His work is informed by his Samoan heritage and includes performance, film, painting, installation and sculpture. In conversation about his work Fale Sā with art historian Caroline Vercoe, Ioane states, Sacred places are not necessarily a church, but it's a place where one likes to be in, a place of affirmation. Curator Ron Brownson writes, Ioane's attitude to sculptural process is cosmological – his carvings bind present reality with a representation of the past.
James Earnest Vivieaere, a New Zealand artist of Cook Islands Māori heritage, was born in Waipawa, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. He was a well-respected and significant multimedia and installation artist, freelance curator and a passionate advocate for contemporary Pacific art.
The Arts Pasifika Awards celebrate excellence in Pacific arts in New Zealand. The annual awards are administered by Creative New Zealand and are the only national awards for Pasifika artists across all artforms.
Rosanna Marie Raymond is a New Zealand artist, poet, and cultural commentator and Raymond was recognised for "Pasifika artists practicing contemporary and heritage art forms in Aotearoa," winning the Senior Pacific Artist Award Winner of 2018, at the Arts Pasifika Awards through Creative New Zealand.
Kulimoe'anga Stone Maka, is an interdisciplinary artist of Tongan heritage who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2011, he was awarded the Emerging Pasifika Artist Award from Creative New Zealand. Maka's work has been exhibited in museums and art galleries in New Zealand, Hawai'i Australia and Tonga. In 2020 he was selected to represent New Zealand at the 22nd Biennale in Sydney.
Jasmine Togo-Brisby is a South Sea Islander artist known for her sculpture installations and portrait photographs. She currently resides in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington and is one of few artists that centres Pacific slave labour as the focus of her practice.
Marilyn Rhonda Kohlhase is a New Zealand arts curator and administrator, specialising in Pacific Islands art. She has worked with Auckland War Memorial Museum and Creative New Zealand. Kohlhase set up the first uniquely pan-Pacific art gallery and is known as the "art lady" in some circles.
Edith Amituanai is a New Zealand photographic artist. In 2007, she was the inaugural recipient of the Marti Friedlander Photographic Award. Examples of her work are held in the collections of Te Papa, Auckland Art Gallery, and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.
Andy Leleisi’uao is a New Zealand artist of Samoan heritage known for his modern and post-modern Pacific paintings and art. He was paramount winner at the 26th annual Wallace Art Awards in 2017 and awarded a Senior Pacific Artist Award at the Arts Pasifika Awards in 2021.
Benjamin Work is an artist from New Zealand with Tongan and Scottish heritage. He is well known for his murals across New Zealand, as well as his paintings inspired by his genealogy back to Tonga.
Ian David George (1953–2016) was a New Zealand-born Cook Islands senior painter, carver, educator, and curator of Atiu and Rarotonga descent.
Ron Brownson (1952–2023), also Ronald Brownson, was a prominent New Zealand curator who contributed significantly to Māori and Pacific art and culture in New Zealand. Brownson was the Senior Curator New Zealand and Pacific Art at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Brownson also held status as a Queer elder and member of New Zealand's Gay Liberation Movement.
Tautai Pacific Arts Trust is a Pacific gallery in Auckland, New Zealand and a charitable trust founded by Fatu Feu'u to empower Pacific arts in New Zealand.
Ioana Gordon-Smith is a New Zealand arts curator and writer. She was assistant curator for Yuki Kihara Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale and co-curator of Naadohbil: To Draw Water, an internationally touring Indigenous exhibition. She co-founded the publication Marinade: Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art to feature New Zealand artists with Pacific Island heritage.
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