'Tolu Tolu Toru' Exhibition Opening

ANDY LELEISI'UAO

Andy Leleisi’uao is a New Zealand artist of Samoan heritage known for his modern and post modern Pacific paintings. His unique visual narrative often incorporates personalized mythology and often references the human condition, social issues and cultural complexities.

MARCUS HIPA

Marcus Hipa is a Niuean Artist. Born and raised in Alofi, Niue Island. He moved to New Zealand to further his creative interests, attending the Elam school of fine arts completing both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Drawing, painting and carving are some of the mediums he utilises to explore and share insights of his people’s history and culture. Celebrating the values, traditions, progress and sense of community, as well as shedding light on social and political issues affecting our Pacific people in our Pacific region and in Aotearoa.

SEFTON RANI

Sefton is a Cook Island artist who uses innovative dried paint skin material and industrial detritus to investigate his Pacific heritage. He discovered this unusual material while working in a paint factory. It was in this environment he said he realised factories were the new urban plantations for Pacific peoples. He calls his work urban tapa which acknowledges the heritage arts of tapa, carving, tattoo, weaving and tivaevae. His works are a unique collage of the paint skin materials he creates and found objects. His abstract works make social commentary on issues that run parallel with the past, present and what that trajectory may point to in the future. His practice references subjects such as migrant labour, black birding, the removal of cultural identity and more recently the impact of cyclone Gabrielle on the land and people’s lives. Sefton’s work is turning heads of unexpected audiences. The art critic and writer Andrew Paul Wood wrote “The work is eclectic. It’s scattergun. It’s punk. It’s gangsta. It’s street. It doesn’t require an overly critical interpretation or engagement because it’s so overtly visceral, uncamouflaged and unpretentious. It’s technically brilliant. It references everything because it isn’t constrained by received hierarchies of taste or academic tradition. It takes up the task of telling a personal and social history through the most difficult medium of all – the abstract art object. It's magnificent.”

UK based art critic and Netflix series presenter Charles Darwent saw Sefton’s work and described it as “complex, subtle work”. Sefton also made the Listener top 100 intriguing New Zealanders list, one of 5 artists included. He was described as a “rapidly rising star with his expressively expressionist almost sculptural paintings”.

Sefton is bravely forging his own path not only with unique materials, methods, and references but in a direction that acknowledges his heritage but is not subservient to it. His vision is global and so is his narrative which makes it relevant to a wide audience and the expanding Pacific footprint. His work expands the definition of what is Pacific art.