Art snippet: John Pule

Niuean-born* John Pule grew up and lives in Auckland. Since the mid-1980s, John Pule has explored performance, poetry, literature and painting, all drawing upon his Niuean culture but placed within a contemporary context. Mythology and history are of specific interest to him as he weaves fish, people and birdlike creatures into a very personal response to the colonisation of the Pacific. 

Pule is perhaps most well known for his use of the aesthetics of Hiapo which is cloth beaten out of paper mulberry bark, felted into rectangular sheets and then painted freehand following a loose grid-like pattern. Traditionally Hiapo imagery depicted narratives of the journeys and history of Niuean people. Pule extends this narrative into contemporary times, expressing his personal experiences as a Niuean living in New Zealand.  

In recent years though Pule’s style has changed significantly - substituting the Hiapo grid structure and unstretched canvases, for stretched canvas supports, populated by blood-red cloud shapes that carry pockets of visual narratives. 

He wrote several novels including The Shark That Ate the Sun (Penguin 1992) and Burn my Head in Heaven (Penguin 1998), excerpts of which he reproduced on canvas and illustrated, in several series that are part of the exhibition currently running at the Auckland Art Gallery until March 25th 2012. Those were my favorite pieces, as they combined his unique illustration style with some of the strongest words I've read in a long time.

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*: Niue is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean. It is commonly known as the "Rock of Polynesia", and inhabitants of the island call it "the Rock" for short. Niue is 2,400 kilometres northeast of New Zealand in a triangle between Tonga, the Samoas, and the Cook Islands to the southeast. About 1,400 people who are predominantly Polynesian live in Niue and New Zealand citizens

sources: http://www.aucklandartgallery.com ; http://www.gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz/artists/johnpule/ ; http://www.papergraphica.co.nz/artist_detail.asp?id=20 ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niue