Opening night:
Friday 3rd July, 5-7pm

This selection of five paintings was created in 2025 as part of Michel Tuffery’s wider Lapita Studies series.

Drawing on ancient Lapita pottery shards as both image and metaphor, Tuffery pieces together fragments of Pacific history, migration, environment and memory.

Across these works, motifs of manu, flora, taro and island pathways connect Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and the wider expanse of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, the great Pacific Ocean.

The title Taonga is my USB Stick speaks to objects, materials and inherited knowledge as carriers of memory. Layered through painting, pattern and cultural reference, the works suggest taonga as living technology - holding origin, whakapapa and connection across time.