Reimagining the Traditional Gallery Exhibition Through a Pacific Lens

A mat beneath a mango tree, dancing shadows and the feeling of being safe at home form the emotional centre of Luca Tu'avao Walton’s first exhibition at Christchurch’s Fibre Gallery.

The Pasifika artist opened Between Tree and Tide on 21 August. Rather than building the show around a grand artistic statement, Walton said he drew it from a specific childhood memory at his aunty Nau’s house, where he lay on a mat with his cousins beneath the shade of a large mango tree.

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I think there’s something really special about having a first show as a Pasifika artist and being able to decide what that world looks like for yourself.

“It would be late afternoon so there would be these dancing shadows cast across the mat and grass by the foliage above, the patterns of the mat pressed into my skin. There was the heat, the shade, the plants, the sound of people talking, the feeling of being completely comfortable and safe somewhere familiar,” Walton said. “It’s such an ordinary memory, but it’s one that has stayed with me ... the exhibition grew from wanting to recreate that feeling.”

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It’s such an ordinary memory, but it’s one that has stayed with me ... the exhibition grew from wanting to recreate that feeling.

Walton’s work centres on the nostalgia of island life. He describes his artworks as small dreamworlds, creating images that feel idyllic and nostalgic while remaining grounded in things he knows. The women in his drawings are often based on friends, relatives and women he has grown up around.

That familiarity has reached deeply into Pacific communities. Walton said one woman told him she had cancelled plastic surgery after seeing the representation in his work, choosing instead to embrace her “wide-set nose”. He said audiences respond to work made from within the culture, with affection and care, rather than work made only about it.

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The artworks are essentially my little dreamworlds. I’m interested in creating images that feel idyllic and nostalgic but are still grounded in things I actually know and recognise.

For Walton, the exhibition also marks a turning point. Much of his practice had existed outside traditional fine-art institutions, making the chance to curate a show reflecting and paying tribute to his island upbringing feel surreal.

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I feel there is a real hunger for work that feels familiar and is made with alofa and 'ofa. People can tell when it’s made from within the culture, not just about it.