ADAM RISH
with
I Wayan Sumantra
“Ethnographica”
Wooden Sculpture and Tapa Cloth
29 November - 15 December 2007
MICHAEL NAGY FINE ART
53 Jersey Rd St, Woollahra NSW 2025 Australia Hours 11-6 Tues-Sat
Ph: 02 9327 2966 Fax: 02 9327 8477 Email: michael@nagyfineart.com.au
For more information see www.nagyfineart.com.au
Ethnographica
Sydney artist and medico Adam Rish, well known for his 'world art' collaborations, has a new exhibition, “Ethnographica”, at Michael Nagy Gallery, Woollahra. On show are life-size wooden sculptures made in collaboration with I Wayan Sumantra in Jungjungan, Bali. The exhibition is based upon traditional carving from Southeast Asia and more specifically tau-tau spirit figures from Sulawesi and horse sculptures from West Timor. Rish has anamorphosed these images with his contemporary domestic iconography: In “My Kingdom for a Horse” the horse is riding backwards on the back of a blind king. “Totem”, based upon an Asmat house pole, shows a stack of cars, phones, houses and soldiers surmounted by winged AK47’s and a little king. “Noah” has a man in a suit walking his boat over dry land while “Banci” shows a two headed hermaphrodite. “Etiket/Etiquette” is a glass coffee table supported by a kneeling figure with a carrot in his rectum. “Bidadari Jatuh/Fallen Angel” has a dunce capped angel in the corner on his mobile phone. Also included in the show are the original sculpture designs on Tongan tapa cloth. Traditionally tau-tau sculptures were used in ceremonial burials to represent the deceased in the after-life. Rish says he doubts many of his collectors will be doing this with these pieces but, in our super-functional society, is sure they will make very fine, garden furniture. The exhibition runs from 29 November until 15 December at 53 Jersey Rd, Woollahra, Ph 9327 2966.
Tapa Cloth
The production of tapa cloth has a 3000 year history in the Pacific but is currently only
practised extensively in Fiji and Tonga. The Tongan term for the cloth is ‘ngatu’. The pieces are used as clothing, room dividers and decoration. Their
main function, however, is as a part of ‘koloa’ (gift exchange) economy whereby
they are given on ceremonial occasions. The cloths are made from the beaten, inner bark of
the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera) or ‘hiapo’ in Tongan.
The pieces are felted together using beating and the glue from the arrowroot.
Natural dyes are prepared from bark of the ‘koka’ tree combined with juice from the ‘tongo’ plant and the candlenut. These are made in red and black and then mixed to make shades of brown. A background pattern is applied using a rubbing board or ‘kupesi’ made from patterns sewn with palm leaf fronds. Areas of the rubbing may then be overpainted. Often the painted cloths are very large - even up to 2 kilometers long. Villages have shared and unique kupesi motifs (some with lost meanings) such as trees, plants, animals and crowns. Often these motifs are designed to commemorate special events such as victories, coronations, gramophones. The designs are often metaphoric and abstract (‘heliaki’). Further symbolic meaning is generated in the relationships between the combination of kupesi employed in the production of a single cloth. There is an element of competition in the painting of the most beautiful cloths. Contrary to current trends for most indigenous artforms the production of tapa in Tonga is booming.
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