The Art of Myth and Reality

Rusiate is one of the most exciting and provocative artists to exhibit at Gallery Gondwana, coming from a long lineage of potters, carvers, tapa cloth and fibre artists. Born 15 April 1976 in Rewa, Fiji, he was brought up by his grandmother, national treasure and famous potter, Taravini Wati who nurtured his creativity and opened him up to experiment with all forms of art.

He studied art at Univeristy of the South Pacific and in 1999 was named Contemporary Fijian Artist of the Year – his work being a sensuous mix of past and present, myth and reality.

With both solo and group exhibitions in Australia and overseas, including his home country Fiji, his work continues to grow, evolve and surprise.

To date, much of his work has explored his personal experiences and his universal awareness of social issues.

His imagery treads the political landscape and issues of the times. His art straddles the divide between the traditional aesthetics and mythology of his indigenous heritage and the hard reality of the modern world. All this is handled with intelligence and sensitivity.

“His ideas are nourished from his direct family who have gifted him with a strong cultural identity from their contributions as Fijian artistic icons,” Roslyn Premont, director of Gallery Gondwana says.

“Add to this his influences from a modernist tradition and you have an energetic body of work grounded in ancestral history.”

Rusiate lives in two worlds, that of his traditional Melanesian culture and that outside it. His work reflects the complexity of the interplay between these two in ways that are provocative and inspiring.

A man of two worlds… having lived between Fiji and Australia, both in Sydney and Alice Springs and now residing back in Fiji, Rusiate is a multi-media artist with a strong connection to both his ancestral past and popular contemporary culture, adding film, music, dance, writing and storytelling, in addition to his body of paintings.

With a foot planted both firmly in the Melanesian art founded on traditional myths, legends and lifestyle, and a foot in the modernist world of climate change and social unrest, many of his works are an expression of events unfolding at the time.

Since 2016, Rusiate has returned to live in Fiji. He opened a Pacific branch for Gallery Gondwana in 2017 in Denarau, near Nadi.

In 2019, after Covid, he returned to operate from his Studio, located on his farm, approximately 45 minutes from the capital of Suva and close to the domestic airport of Nausori.

Visitors are welcome.