Brisbane: Art exhibition builds Pacific bridges

AAP General News (Australia)
08-19-2000
Brisbane: Art exhibition builds Pacific bridges

By Paul Osborne

BRISBANE, Aug 19 AAP - Reconciliation and bridging modern and traditional cultures
are major themes in the work of visiting Samoan artist, Fatu Feu'u.

Feu'u, who is known as the father of contemporary Pacific art, is in Ipswich, west
of Brisbane, today for the opening of a major exhibition of South Pacific art.

Island Crossings, being staged at Ipswich's Global Arts Link from today until November
12, features work by Feu'u and 14 other innovative Samoan, Maori, Niuean, Tongan and Pacific
Island artists.

Fifty-four-year-old Feu'u, who lives in New Zealand with his wife and seven children,
started his artistic career painting formulaic seascapes and landscapes.

Around 1985 he decided to explore different styles, while maintaining links to his
traditional Samoan culture.

"I began to explore my own traditions and thinking to help me create my visions of
my type of art," he said.

"To me, art is not just about painting or sculpting," he said.

"Art is part of everything we do, whether it is building a house or the way we talk
to our friends.

"Part of our survival is doing our art. And if we don't then we are lost.

"Our art is very important. It's the heart and soul of every culture."

Two key themes in his vivid work are reconciliation and "the spiritual sense of navigation".

He also incorporates traditional proverbs and sayings from Samoan culture and sees
reconciliation within families as an important theme.

Feu'u said art had great potential in the South Pacific not only to produce income,
but to build bridges between contemporary and traditional culture.

Exhibition curator, Giles Peterson, said Island Crossings took a contemporary look
at Pacific Islanders' cultures and urban influences and recognised the large suburban
Maori and Pacific Islander communities in Ipswich and south-east Queensland.

The exhibition includes paintings, carvings, pandanus and shell creations, weaving,
jewellery, body art, music videos, book illustration and poster artwork.

Mr Peterson, an Auckland-based art lecturer, said it was the first exhibition of its
kind to come to Australia.

"The focus of economic and cultural policy is now on the Asia-Pacific," he said.

"These links will become more important in the future."

Artists involved in the exhibition will also visit schools and art groups, making it
an interactive cultural event.

"The idea is to outreach and link with the community," Mr Peterson said.

"It's about raising consciousness and forging new identities."

The exhibition was opened by Queensland Treasurer David Hamill today.

At the opening, sculptor Ian George began carving a three-metre totem and local Aboriginal,
Maori and Samoan dancers and musicians performed.



(Note - Digital images from the exhibition are available from Ipswich City Council.

Contact Maureen Millar 0417 785 188)

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KEYWORD: ISLAND ART

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