Image courtesy of Yuki Kihara and Milford Galleries, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Fonofono o le nuanua: Patches of the rainbow (After Gauguin), 2020
Hahnemühle fine art paper mounted on aluminium
139 Ã 375 cm
Kihara’s remediation of Western art history from Gauguin to Manet is manifested in the vast photograph Fonofono o le nuanua: Patches of the rainbow (After Gauguin), emulating Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897–98).
Here, a group of Fa‘afafine poses riverside in bright attire in a photograph spanning over 3 metres that is like a frieze in scale and complexity. Poetic, profound and resilient, this community portrait asserts new narratives.
Watch the making-of video
Paul Gauguin
In Gauguin’s paintings, Kihara noticed uncanny similarities to Fa’afafine. In Paradise Camp, Kihara upcycles Gauguin’s works using Fa‘afafine models to represent her own vision of Paradise.
