Samuel Tupou

Hailed as one of Australia's most exciting emerging talents, acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and included in ‘Snap Freeze, Still Life Now’, TarraWarra Museum, artist Samuel Tupou combines Pacific Island influences with Street Art techniques and pop culture symbolism to create works that reflect the artist's own mixed cultural heritage.

Born in New Zealand to a Tongan father, Samuel Tupou was exposed to the 'Tapa' cloths used in ceremony throughout the Pacific Islands. Traditionally made using dark dye painted onto a material made from roots of the mulberry plant, patterns are often made up of repeated geometric grids with animal and plant motifs.

Currently based in Far North Queensland, the vivid colour-scape and symbols of the tropics are a constant source of inspiration. Using silkscreen printing onto layers of Perspex and PVC, Tupou's works are multi-layered both in appearance and cultural context. Tupou presents us with a 'New Tapa' - a combination of varied cultural influences that make up the artist's own background.

In Tupou's colourful vision stencil drawn cows breathe fire while planes fly over power stations in the background, and flat areas are filled with a mish mash of patterns sourced from a variety of sources including Western wallpaper design, traditional Tongan patterning and Pop Art.

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