Summary“I make art to help influence young Pasifika minds who feel limited by their cultural expectations, but I truly believe we are all natural born artists with creativity and love running through our blood.”
Keciano Tufuga is an Auckland-based Samoan (Asau and Alafua) visual artist. The 20-year-old artist creates large mixed-media paintings and drawings that draw from a rich reference pool which includes fa’a Sāmoa, anime and manga, film and music. Keciano creates work that reflects on his own journey as a first-generation immigrant to Aotearoa and the reclamation of his Samoan heritage and culture.
Creative Process
After a busy period of making, Keciano has used the Faleship as an opportunity to pause and delve deeper into the fundamentals of his practice. Within his highly symbolic painting practice, Keciano paints the story of his own self-discovery through expressive brush strokes, jagged and unfinished forms, and emotive colours. He notes that in working this way, he has developed a deeper understanding of the vā within his practice and the space he breathes his art into.
“While I navigate these spaces I become more aware of of the vā between my art and the spaces that hold them. From each space I enter I leave with new relationships, connections and knowledge on how to nurture them. Although many spaces may respectively hold me and my art I hold dearly, they could never know the truth.”
Final Work
For Keciano Tufuga’s final Fale-ship Residency work, the artist has created a series of vibrant abstracted paintings which are infused with hidden pop-culture references and fa’a Sāmoa. He layers cultural motifs with abstracted forms and blocks of muted colour, with just enough information for viewers to find their own stories in the pieces. The palette feels nostalgic, while the use of layering and overlapping composition hints at a non-linear understanding of identity and culture.
What is perhaps most interesting about Keciano Tufuga’s practice are the various visual elements at play and how he, on both a personal and artistic level, evolves after each work is created. Through elements such as recurring patterns, forms and colours, the artist takes notes and continually makes discoveries about himself and the work he makes.
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