Alison Leauanae, Land of Promise II (detail), cotton thread hand-stitched on paper, 660x530mm, 2023.
Kindred speaks to the familial relationships and connections to ancestral homelands for sisters Linda Va’aelua and Alison Leauanae.
This body of work is an exploration of the artists’ mixed Samoan, Scottish and English heritage through abstracted motif, telling stories of migration and navigation from origins across oceans to promised lands of opportunity and prosperity.
Their contrasting styles, Va’aelua’s paint and wool on hessian, and Leauanae’s thread stitched into paper, provide an interesting narrative about journeys that have a shared history, but with unique perspectives…a powerful image of what it is to be kindred.
