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Sheyne
Tuffery
Sheyne
Tuffery is a Wellington based multi-media visual artist;
whose primary mediums are painting, animation and printmaking.
He is perhaps best known for the dynamic style of his prints
and woodcuts. Tuffery describes himself as a paper architect
who uses his work to create and represent his own cultural
context and sense of belonging.
His
prints and paintings often envisage Polynesia as a futuristic
urban utopia; with the Samoa fale as the symbolic archetype
for skyscrapers, apartment housing and rocket ships (vaka).
These works reflect Tuffery's research into his Samoan heritage
and symbolism, his travel wanderlust and his taste for big
overseas cities. They also reveal ongoing influences, the
world of fantasy, comics and cartoons, which add a sense
of immediacy and humour to his subject matter.
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2005 Tuffery lived on the shores of the Manukau harbour
where he became aware of Manukau's bird population and
local bird lore. He became fascinated by New Zealand's
geological history as a singular landmass and natural
sanctuary for a vast array of bird species; including
the extinct ones like the giant penguin. Tuffery draws
on his own associations to Samoa (meaning 'sacred bird')
and to classic cars (especially the 'endangered ones')
as symbols of urban - migration vaka. |
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(Dr
Karen Stevenson, Senior Lecturer in Art History, University
of Canterbury)
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Sheyne
explains his art comes from a confusion of cultural identity,
from his mixed cultural background of New Zealand / Samoa.
His work celebrates the afakasi, the halfcast, that confusion
of not fitting into either side, so inventing your own culture
in art.
"I see my art as being visual symphonies of a futuristic
Polynesia, the combination of human and machine in a primitive
environment. Everything I see, feel and hear, has an impact
on my compositions, especially architecture and music. I
want the audience to hear the images as well as see them.
The lines that I carve, are for the dynamic of my work,
these come from the veins of banana leaves and the strapping
in polynesian fales (houses). The shimmer in this dynamic,
traps light in a way to form (to me): a unique frequency.
This frequency is me."
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