'We [artists] retell, we speculate, we investigate, we chronicle, we create, we instigate, we fabricate, we activate, we procrastinate, and we decorate.'
Born in Tonga in 1980, Tuita was raised in several different villages until aged 9, when it was decided that the boy who spoke no English would be better off with his father in Sydney. The cultural adaptation to life in Sydney was astonishing - from island village to urban metropolis. It was a different planet, new language, new family, new culture, new village. Surrounded by the general materialistic nature of western consumerism, he was fascinated by its bright and shiny disposability and infinite re-invention. Music, movies, department store windows, chic product packing, glossy magazines, fast food and fast pace of life the antithesis of his former Island existence.
Tuita’s metropolitan family dynamic was not without tribulation and lasted until he was aged 14. As a teenager, Tuita re-experienced his childhood circumstance, living between spaces, first with his father and then Aunty and Uncle who ultimately guided him to university. It proved a fateful turn of events, as it laid the foundation for what was to ultimately manifest itself as the artists principal concept, the self-coined genre, Tongpop. Tongpop is an intriguing blend of influence, historical and contemporary personalities, art, music, movies and literature, foundational pillars of the western canon blended with memories, icons and patterns of the artists cultural origins. Within his practice - video, photography, painting, sculpture and installation - Tuita navigates ideas of home and belonging, identity and self-worth. It encapsulates an experience lived between two realities.
Telly Tuita completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at Western Sydney University (1999-2003)
before undertaking a Bachelor of Art Education at the University of New South Wales (2004). In 2011, Tuita completed a Master’s in Special Education through the University of Sydney. Since moving to New Zealand, Tuita has exhibited in Christchurch, Hamilton, Wellington, Auckland, Rarotonga, Sydney, Brisbane and Tauranga and has been a finalist in a number of art awards including the New Zealand National Contemporary Art Award and the Molly Morpeth Canaday Award 3D.
In 2023, Tuita delivered several public solo projects including Tongpop Pantheon, Core Program Outdoor - Australian Premiere, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia and Tongpop to Britomart, Britomart Precinct, Auckland, New Zealand. In 2022, he participated in the important group exhibition Wetūrangitia/Made As Stars, The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, New Zealand and New Photography Aotearoa, The Renshaws, Brisbane, Australia. In 2022 and 2023, Tuita participated at the Aotearoa Art Fair, Auckland, New Zealand. In 2021, Tuita featured as part of the group exhibition MĀNAWATIA TAKATĀPUI : DEFENDING PLURALITY, Tauranga Art Gallery, Tauranga, New
Zealand.
Tuita’s large format public exhibition, Tongpop’s Great Expectations, opened on 3 January 2024 at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney, Australia.