Dramatic, dark and hauntingly beautiful portraits of the artist depicted in
various roles from Samoan mythology make up Shigeyuki Kihara’s first solo
exhibition with the Bartley Nees Gallery. In Vavau – Tales from Ancient Samoa post-modern art meets Pacific folklore
to create a unique and compelling body of work. Following in the footsteps
of internationally renowned artists such as Yasumasa Morimura, the Japanese
artist who inserts himself into famous Western painting and America’s Cindy
Sherman who portrays herself in a myriad of different roles, Kihara has
looked to her own roots for inspiration
As a fa’afine [the Samoan term for a transgender person] of Samoan and
Japanese descent, Kihara blurs the boundaries of definition in both her life
and art practice. Winner of the 2003 Creative New Zealand Emerging Pacific
Island Artist Award, she creates strikingly original art that embraces
depiction of one particular cultural history with the critiquing of another.
Her new photographic works show moments in a specific Samoan folktales or
‘fagono’. Playing homage to her Samoan heritage through the telling of
traditional narrative, she subtly parodies a history of European
representation of Pacific peoples in art, particularly the so-called dusky
maiden velvet-painting genre.
‘Where the velvet painters are notorious for portraying Pacific people from
the colonial gaze, what I do is re-occupy that gaze" she says. "I come from
a point of view from the insider" (Shigeyuki Kihara, 2004)
The sultry portraits of idealised Polynesian beauties and the infamous
velvet paintings by artists such as Charles McPhee are now prize commodity
items in the fashionable retro chic of collectibles and interior design. Yet
typically Kihara uses this to advantage. Seducing the viewer with visual
language of staged photography, her works are both ironic and poignant, for
our sultry dusky maiden is no longer. She was once a he, and she re-occupies
the ‘gaze’ with awareness and self-control.
"Shigeyuki Kihara was born to defy categorisation. Her very existence blurs
and challenges the organisation of mainstream thought and practise. What is
special about her however is her successful negotiation of the interstices
that could otherwise have rendered her incredible. She has stood
uncompromisingly in her own marginalised space, fully intending the world to
come to her."
Jim Vivieaere, 2003
Trained originally in fashion design, Kihara has developed her
multi-disciplinary practice to encompass stage performance (Pasifika Divas),
fashion, illustration, design and photography. Her breakthrough came in 2000
when Te Papa purchased her work Teuanoa’I - Adorn to Excess - a collection
of 28 T-shirts displaying altered corporate logos. This controversial
‘logo-jamming’ targeted large companies who employ large numbers of low paid
pacific islanders and subverted mainstream brands with a pacific twist. Over
the last few years Kihara has been exhibiting widely and has most recently
been included in the City Gallery Wellington biennial survey exhibition
‘Prospect’ 2004.
IMAGE
Shigeyuki Kihara
Aitu - fale aitu house of spirits
digital photograph and mixed media
2003
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