Veisa / Ngunggilanha
exchange - give to each other
OPENING
SATURDAY 28th OCT 2023
(Please note this exhibition is taking place in Fiji)
Time: 4.00-7.00 PM
OFFICIAL OPENING 6.00 PM
REFRESHMENTS PROVIDED
RSVP to: enquiries@lancasterpressfiji.com
Lancaster Press is proud to partner with Blak Dot Gallery and welcome our First Nations guests from Naarm(Melbourne) as part of a ‘International Art Residency Exchange’ here at Lancaster Press Fiji.
Artists include:
IRAMI BULI | SUSIE ELLIOTT | SONJA HODGE | MASON JAMES LEE | ANARE SOMUMU | JOSUA TOGANIVALU | PETER WAPLES-CROWE | LISA WAUP
Artists Bio’s
IRAMI BULI
Fiji’s most celebrated artist was mentored by an Academic Professor and a renowned painter, poet, and writer of the first and second wave of talented artists known to be the RED WAVE collective. A Contemporary and distinctive Painter by profession with decades of experience in the Arts locally and internationally he has become successfully celebrated for his wealth of achievements in Art Exhibitions in Fiji and the Pacific region.
“Art is not about how you can portray a perfect picture, for me it is more a self-portrait of who you do not know. The more I dwell within me the more curious I become about the millions of things I do not know about myself.”
SUSIE ELLIOTT
Born in Fiji Susie lived and worked in New Zealand. During the 1990s, she studied Chinese brush techniques in Manila, Philippines, and upon her return to New Zealand, she continued her art education graduating with an Advanced Diploma in the Craft, Art & Design Programme at the Whitireia Community Polytechnic in Wellington in 1999. In 2001, she graduated with a BFA from The Quay School of the Arts, Wanganui, NZ majoring in Printmaking. She also graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma in Museum Studies in 2002 at Massey University. She then worked as a librarian in Wellington from 2003 to 2017. Susie has exhibited and sold her artworks in group and solo shows in the Philippines, New Zealand, and Fiji. Since her return to Fiji in 2017, Susie has worked tirelessly to build up her art practice. She has been involved in art projects and workshops, exhibitions, and commissions, and has since written two children’s books on ocean stories.
Susie states: ‘As an artist, returning to Fiji has altered how I regard the landscape here; my childhood country is foreign and yet, familiar. There are layers of intense self-examination going on in the way I see myself in this island’s natural landscape. Drawing is a key part of this exploration. An important feature of my artistic process is working en plein air. I work with paints, inks, and graphite on paper in an expressionistic style.
SONJA HODGE
Sonja expresses her identity as a Lardil and Yangkaal woman through her strong designs of wreaths, leaves, waterways and figures, which speaks to her Aboriginality and the pride she feels for the resilience of her people. Sonja is a print-maker incorporating multi block and reduction Lino printing and Lithography.
MASON JAMES LEE
Mason James Lee is of Chinese and Fijian heritage and is one of Fiji’s artist. Mason learnt art at a young age and is self taught. Mason was part of the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture at the University of the South Pacific where he has been resident since 1999 till 2007where he had worked on some of his technique and explored different mediums until he felt confident. Mason has been exhibiting his work since 2000 till today. His first Solo was in the year 2002 at the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture. Lee attributes his predominantly red palette to the way "these colours represent the burning passion that I have within me to paint".
Mason enjoys art very much and often compares it to the revelation of the unseen world. The exploration of different techniques allow him to become more and more familiar with this world and dare to translate in colour and patterns some tormented and heavily patterned seas. His paintings offer to the eyes of the viewer a journey through his rich symbolic imagination.
ANARE SOMUMU
Born in 1971 in Lakeba Village, Saqani, Cakaudrove, Fiji, Anare lives and works in the nation’s capital, Suva. Beginning his art career in 1991, he was first involved in illustrating children’s books for Fiji’s education system spanning more than 15 years. He later worked as a painter, mainly drawing inspiration from the natural world, Fiji’s indigenous culture and traditions, and humanity as a whole. Anare is naturally talented and considered one of Fiji’s most influential and well respected artists.
JOSUA TOGANIVALU
Josua Toganivalu is a self-taught artist and graphic designer, currently working from Suva, Fiji. Toganivalu’s artwork considers both his Indigenous Fijian identity and his reflections on wider issues in society today. He connects to his cultural traditions through earth colours and grid-compositions, while maintaining contemporary relevance through his illustrated motifs.
Toganivalu was a founding member of the Red Wave Collective, which pioneered Fiji’s contemporary painting movement in the 1990s and early 2000s. Over the past two decades, Toganivalu’s works have been collected by institutions and private collectors around Fiji and increasingly worldwide. He has exhibited across the Oceania region in group shows and represented Fiji through regional Arts Festivals.
PETER WAPLES-CROWE
Peter Waples-Crowe is a multidisciplinary artist who’s practice explores the intersection of an Indigenous queer identity, spirituality and Australia’s ongoing colonisation. Influenced by his adoption and later reconnection to his Ngarigo heritage, Peter's work comments on the world as a contested site for his multiple identities. Referencing many disparate ideas and themes his work is auto ethnographic by nature and largely based on personal experience.
LISA WAUP
Lisa Waup is a mixed-cultural First Nations artist and curator, born in Narrm (Melbourne), whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses a diverse range of media, including weaving, experimental printmaking, photography, sculpture, fashion, and digital art. With a deep connection to the symbolic power of materials, her work reflects her personal experiences, family history, Country, and broader historical narratives. Through her practice, Waup weaves together threads of lost history, ancestral relationships, motherhood, and the passage of time, culminating in contemporary expressions that speak to her past, present, and future. Waup is currently a Lecturer in the Drawing and Printmaking Department at Victorian College of the Arts and the University of Melbourne.
Website: www.lisa-waup.com
insta: lisa.waup
Proudly supported by: Indigenous Languages and Arts Program (ILA), Creative Victoria,
Lancaster Press Fiji and Blak Dot Gallery.