Auckland Waterfront
The Cloud, 89 Quay Street
Feature Presentation: Telly Tuita, The Immortal Tango of Love & War.
Wellington-based artist Telly Tuita was born in Tonga in 1980 and immigrated to Sydney at age nine. Living in Australia for most of his life, Tuita’s disconnect from his Tongan heritage has long informed his practice. Exploring his cultural identity and the western ethos in which he was raised has given rise to Tuita’s distinctive visual language, the self coined, Tongpop.
Tuita’s chronicle mash up of historical and contemporary art, music, movies and literature with his own cultural origins defines the artists genre of Tongpop and epitomizes the outsized influence of the western ethos across the Pacific expanse, be it Islands in the sun or Islanders in the city. It touches all aspects of life and has given rise to a new diasporic Pacific persona for which Tuita speaks. It’s a fine balancing act of cultural nostalgia, self and belonging and the prospects of bright lights/big city.
Group Exhibition: Mahiriki Tangaroa | Raymond Sagapolutele | Benjamin Work | Sylvia Marsters. New works available by this group of celebrated Pacififc artists.
