"Supa Mahei Ngatu" (Very Crazy Tapa)
Adam Rish and Palema Tualau
200 X 230 cm, natural dyes on tapa
Veitongo, Tonga 1999

In 1999 I travelled to Tonga and worked on a series of tapa cloths. The painted form of this cloth is called ngatu. This is the indigenous art for of Tonga and is made by beating out the bark of the Hiapo plant to make the cloth. In this image there is a juxtaposition of my images of cars, televisions, planes and stabbed in the back kings with the motifs used by Palema which are specific to her area.

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