The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Although the surfaces and materials for the APT7 Kwoma project differ, it is equally strong. Kwoma men traditionally used a restricted palette of red, yellow and white, painting panggals onto their ceiling over an almost black clay background. In Brisbane, cut 3mm-plywood segments and acrylic paints were used instead. In contrast to the disciplined Abelam geometry, Kwoma artists assemble a multitude of individually painted panggals in a vibrant, but seemingly informal, arrangement that covers the whole ceiling. Apparently, the only ordering rule related to the painter’s seniority. 11 Choosing a site for a Kwoma koromb , as with the Abelam korumbo , is very deliberate — although the art work is spectacular, the koromb ’s presence is understated due to a design that produces a restricted, conceptually internal, experience. The carved posts and beams, the painted ceiling and ties, can only be fully perceived from within the space, and appear darkly dramatic. While externally Kwoma koromb seem reticent, they are nevertheless impressive. Unique and memorable, these forms are finely crafted with impeccable detail, focused on the impact of the entry elements. These include upturned ends of a saddle-shaped roof; figuratively carved protruding ridge-beam ends; an end post; and two angled props and fringed tapering porch eaves that take the roof down almost to the ground. The Abelam and Kwoma works presented in APT7 are ambitious in their complex weaving of contemporary presentation, artistic skill, ambassadorial representation and tradition. In Brisbane, these village artists adjusted to creating these structures under studio conditions using contemporary, carefully selected materials. Although the production contexts were vastly different, the works on show in APT7 maintain the presence and values ascribed to them at home. In November 2011 we saw village elders, in the sanction of a formal meeting in the Tongwinjamb koromb , exhort their team to keep the commissioned art true to, and within, their own clan traditions. Minor new flourishes may be seen here but only by an experienced eye. Expert artists always had license to express and interpret the traditional images within boundaries, and as individuals. Meanwhile, work from any one village could still be distinguished from that of any other. Art and culture in the Sepik continually evolves, responding to various influences, resistances and interpretations. Its architecture and art, as it was first encountered by Europeans in the 1930s or 1960s, or shown in Brisbane in 2012, has vibrancy, interprets life and raises issues. Such works of artistry, imagination and skill endure as great contemporary expressions of identity and the human condition. Abelam korumbos can be small, medium or large in size — the facade of a medium- sized korumbo in Brikiti (left), and a drawing of the compositional scheme of its painted panel (right) OPPOSITE FROM TOP The amazing ceiling of an Ambunti Local Council house, East Sepik, 1969 Kwoma artist, Tongwinjamb, East Sepik, July 2011 Photographs: Martin Fowler 232