Bio | Vanya Taule'alo

SAUMAEAFE VANYA TAULE’ALO

In 2003 Vanya was one of six Samoan artists chosen by the Samoan Government to be featured in the painters stamp collection. Vanya is featured in the stamp, in front of her artwork titled Ia Tapu i se Fusi.

Vanya Taule’alo was born in 1951 in Christchurch, New Zealand. She came from creative stock – her mother was a pianist and singer and her father a painter. Her ancestors came to New Zealand in the first fleet and played an active role in New Zealand colonial history. They were entrepreneurs and pioneers.

Vanya’s great-grandfather, Alfred Tyree was a manufacturer, and his brothers William and Fred Tyree were photographers. Their photographs span fifty years of New Zealand’s early history and remain one of the most valuable pictorial records of New Zealand’s colonial past.

The Nelson Provincial Museum houses about 250,000 negatives called ‘The Tyree Collection’ and other negatives are housed in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.

Vanya’s father George Johnson was born in the small town of Masteron. He and his brother Louis were to become prominent in the New Zealand artistic scene of the 1940s and 1950s. Leaving New Zealand in the early 1950s, George Johnson, has since made a name for himself Australia as an abstract expressionist painter (see right above). Louis Johnson was a well-known New Zealand poet (1924-1988).

LIFE IN SAMOA

Vanya first came to Samoa in 1974. It was to become her home – the place she raised her children and the place that was to inspire her creativity.

This was a place that grabbed hold of my heart so tightly that I would work for its people with such commitment and drive as would never be possible back in my own country.

As a palagi (foreigner) married to a Samoan Vanya became “absorbed into her adopted society”. She spent the next 32 years involved in education at all levels. Between 1989 and 1997 Vanya and her family took six years’ study leave in Sydney.

During this time Vanya studied art, which had been a life-long passion for her. Beginning with a Diploma in Fine Arts she completed a Masters in Fine Arts at the Sydney College of the Arts and the University of Sydney. On returning to Samoa in 1997, she resumed lecturing in Visual Arts and Education at the National University of Samoa. In 2006 Vanya received her Doctor of Philosophy in Fine Arts at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

Since leaving the National University of Samoa in 2008 to concentrate on her art and consultancy work, she has been able to develop her studio, a small gallery and to participate in local and regional exhibitions.

Vanya has three sons and lives with her husband Tu’u’u Ieti Taule’alo in Siusega, Samoa.

INSPIRATION & EXHIBITIONS

Vanya Taule’alo has exhibited in Germany, New Caledonia, Australia, New Zealand and in Samoa. She has published widely, and her work Ia Tupu i se Fusi was chosen to represent Samoa for the 2001 Women’s’ Day of Prayer in Germany, where one female artist worldwide is chosen to submit work to use for meditation and prayer.

One of her installations Tautua, Pule Mana from her Masters exhibition ‘Eternal Symbols’ is housed in the collection of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in New Caledonia. Several of her artworks have been bought by private collectors world wide.

Vanya is inspired by family ties and relationships and concern for the fragile natural environment. Her works explore and respond to Samoan myths, cultural practices, identity issues, family and the environment.

Vanya refers to herself as a ‘hybrid’, blessed with insights into two cultures and given understanding of two very different worlds that nourish her both spiritually and artistically.

My artworks reveal the compelling influence of the Samoan culture and the importance of the aganu’u, (customs), aiga, (extended family) fanua (land) and as the core of one’s being. I also address issues of change, conflict and unity. Patterns of identity fascinate me, and my paintings and wood cuts merge abstracted symbols that have become my own personal iconography.

TATTOOS, TAPA & LE TOGO SAMOA

By weaving tapa and tattooing symbols through her paintings, Vanya creates her own symbols that are still identifiable as Samoan. She also creates an immediate intimacy with the Samoan viewer. But her symbolism also invites other cultures to explore the belief system of the Samoan people.

Recent works such as the Le Togo Series, reflect visits to mangrove areas, and are textured and abstract responses to theses unique fragile ecosystems.