The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

Lives and works in Port Vila,Vanuatu Ariki 1995 Ceramic forms withpigtusks 45x50x30cm Collection:Centre Culture! Jean-Marie Tjibaou,Noum~a Eric Natuoivi was born in 1959 in Matangi village on Futuna Island, a tiny island at the southern end of the Vanuatu archipelago. His artistic interest was first sparked when he began attending high school in the early 1970s in Port Vila, the national capital, where he learned to draw and paint. Upon completion of his secondary education, Eric undertook a further two year training course to gain his teaching qualifications and subsequently began teaching a general curriculum at primary school. In 1986, after five years of teaching, Eric was appointed tutor in visual and performing arts at the Vanuatu Teachers College. Motiv_ated by a desire to be better able to teach art to ni-Vanuatu (the term used for people of Vanuatu), Eric applied for and was awarded a scholarship to study in Australia, where he attained a Graduate Diploma in Expressive and Performing Arts in 1987, followed by a Master of Education in Creative Art in 1991 from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney. In Sydney he was introduced to clay as a medium and ceramics as a form of expression. Clay is a medium of expression I find very satisfying and personally rewarding. As an art educator, I know we must be prepared to try out new materials whenever possible, and clay has been my new material. Working with clay, as any potter understands, is working with uncertainty and doubt because one does not know what the finished product will look like or whether it will succeed in form and design. I have used many 118 I A RT I s T s: PA c I FI c techniques in finishing my pottery pieces including burnishing and incising ni-Vanuatu designs into the clay surface. 1 Eric's first exhibition of his artwork, as part of the 'Graduate Exhibition' at the University of New South Wales in 1987, featured paintings and small ceramic pieces. The latter were both glazed and sawdust fired, and included simple burnished dishes and bowls and some closed pieces. By the time of his next exhibition, the 'Graduate Exhibition' at the University of New South Wales in 1991, Eric was working solely with ceramics. He displayed twenty-seven burnished pots incised with traditional ni-Vanuatu designs. He has since exhibited in the national 'Art '92', 'Art '93', 'Art '94' and 'Art '95' exhibitions in Port Vila, and in the 1995 exhibition was awarded both the prestigious Air Vanuatu Acquisitive Award and the Artists' Choice Award. The lauded piece exhibited in the 'Art '95' exhibition was a self-portrait entitled The artist, which consisted of a single clay pot with three curved pig's tusks protruding from the top. Eric's vision of his emergence as an artist is portrayed in the tusks: one represents the labourer who works with his hands, the next is the craftsman who works with his heart as well as his hands, and the final tusk is the artist, who uses his hands, his heart and his head. The artist is one piece in a stylistic series also exhibited in the 'Contemporary Art of the South Pacific' exhibition in Sydney in May 1995 and again in the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial. These works use a mixed media of clay, wood, woven coconut fibre cord and pig's tusks to symbolically depict contemporary and traditional themes from Vanuatu society. The pig's tusk is a traditional symbol of status and wealth in a number of the Melanesian societies of Vanuatu and it appears on many of the national emblems, including the flag and the coat of arms.The four different works displayed in the 'Contemporary Art of the South Pacific' exhibition each represent aspects of the chiefly and acquired rank systems of four islands of Vanuatu. The piece exhibited in the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial, Conflict over equality 1996, depicts the changing contemporary status of ni-Vanuatu women through the positioning of the wood and tusk limbs. The lower limbs represent the traditional situation, where women were subservient to men. The upper limbs represent the contemporary situation of statutory equality. As the use of traditional themes and decorative patterns in the creation of these latest works demonstrates, Eric's primary source of inspiration is the traditional culture of Vanuatu. He feels strongly that a knowledge of art, both traditional and contemporary, is essential for the development of a healthy self-identity in young people and his courses at the Vanuatu Teachers College aim to impart this recognition to his students. As one of the most exciting indigenous artists to emerge in Vanuatu of late, Eric's works have been acquired as a representation of contemporary ni-Vanuatu art by the Australian Museum and the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in New Caledonia. Eric still teaches art at the Vanuatu Teachers College, where he currently resides with his wife and five children. Ralph Regenvanu,Director,Vanuatu Cultural Centre,Port Vila, Vanuatu 1 EricNatuoivi, citedin Graduate Exhibition [exhibition catalogue], University of New SouthWales, Sydney, Australia, 1991.