“For forty years Fatu Feu’u has been the central figure of the contemporary Pacific art movement in Aotearoa New Zealand. Feu’u’s influence has been outstanding at both the national and international level and has been no less remarkable in his nurturance and encouragement of artists evolving symbolic languages in the exploration of new identities in the diaspora. His influence with succeeding generations of artists has been profound. These works are Feu’u’s meditation on restoration after devastating loss. Travelling to Samoa the day after the tsunami ravaged the islands of Samoa on September 29, 2009, to discover erosion disappeared 30 metres of family land, palms trees stripped bare, food crops decimated, and many tonnes of stone house foundations tossed out to sea. The fluctuating volatility of environmental conditions has led humankind to the brink of disaster; extensive flooding, record temperatures, destructive fires, bleaching of coral reef, and recurrent adverse weather patterns are unprecedented in scale and catastrophic in nature.

This presentation of works holds up a mirror up to our environmental reality. Bright colour and dynamic movement capture the attention and the potential of tactility entices one closer. The frenetic energy of Climate Drift reveals deep oceanic vents and fissures, the swirling eddies of pooled greys portents of the final implosion of Climate Drift II. Glowing magma slides and collides with cool springs muddied by the turmoil.

Frantic struggles of marine life against a choking death in Our Melting Reef decries a modernity that has led us to the very edge.

The gods and ancestors are here free of the formal patterned grids, in their stead is the free hand of the tautai, master navigator, as he traverses Tagaloa’s marine domain. Ever the optimist, Feu’u discloses within the chaos Tagaloa the Creator of land and God of the sea dreaming, waiting, and watching, creating pathways for our re-emergence out of the ruins. The all-seeing eye and the all-consuming ‘I’ are centred at the pivotal juncture between the male and the female essence, the power of nature and humankind’s insatiable greed, between death and resurrection. At this juncture we are progeny of the gods, we will take our place once again alongside the spirit ancestors and forge new relationships with our environment.

Feu’u has one last lesson – one he believes deeply and has followed all his life. It is a Samoan idiom ‘Alu fai sau taeao’, literal translation is ‘go make your future’. Samoan culture being community centred the message is clear, you have been taught, therefore walk the good path and establish your righteous future."

– Fuli Pereira 2022