Gallery Gondwana Sydney
7 Danks Street, Waterloo, NSW
Tel: +61 2 8399 3492
Hours: Wed - Sat 10am - 5.30pm, Sun 11am - 4pm
Tuesdays by appointment | | | | From a distinguished artistic lineage, Rusiate was a founding member of the Red Wave group at the Center for Oceanic Arts and Culture in Suva, Fiji in the mid 90’s. In 2000 his works were included as part of the Fijian contingent to the Pacific Festival of the Arts in Noumea, New Caledonia. He has since found an enthusiastic audience in Australia for his unique and sophisticated style, combining the traditional with the contemporary.
A number of successful exhibitions here have gradually drawn him to adopt Australia as his second home. This shift in loyalty has progressively informed his practice, providing him with a wealth of material from which he has drawn to create works which situate this artist as existing in the space between two worlds. Works from this period contain political and social references and are intensely narrative, linear and grid-like constructions on a flat plane.
Recent works have taken on a more painterly aspect, moving towards a deeper preoccupation with situating elements of ancestral mythology in the constructed environment. Often combining layers of paint in lines and patterns, these essentially graphic works have a distinctly filmic reference. Fragmented text in two languages alludes to lost narrative, a sense of foreboding and an incomplete warning. Fleeting glimpses, as if seen from a car window or reflected off a passing building, give a sense of landscape with no horizon, no edge.
Into these he encodes personal totemic iconography and narrative that reflect his ancestral heritage. Reference is made to complex indigenous issues, drawing attention to problems of the environment, human rights and social justice as his work shifts from the bold, bright colours of the Pacific to the colder palette of an unwelcoming cityscape
Entitled Crossroads the artist describes his artistic and cultural journey, encompassing both Fijian tribal and Western iconography as “traveling along parallel lines simultaneously”.
Rusiate has extended his engagement with the architectural, bringing to life ancestral figures to interact within this complex urban landscape.
Current urban anxieties are encapsulated in the painting entitled “Awareness” with reference to the toppling of famous American icons. The Empire State building is shown as animated, lurching forward as if possessed by some mythic Fijian beast. Nostalgic in the art deco design and the clumsy, slightly comical black & white ‘movie-esque’ quality, the threat is somewhat tempered and rendered impotent. The artist is building up layer upon layer of hybrid historical reference, both western and Pacific Islander, in an attempt to locate himself in a contemporary context.
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