Oceania Arts

Oceania Arts

Arts in Oceania

Also geographically geographical, Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia constitute their region, each with its characteristic features and artistic expression according to Countryaah. Oceanic art is generally incorporated under the concept of tribal art (older term “primitive art”) and is mainly of a religious nature. Creation myths, ancestral worship and initiation and fertility rites are the foundation of all artistic activity. Art works not least as an effective spell, which seeks to appease the forces of nature and control the worldview, religion and society. Anthropomorphic (human-like) figures dominate both as stand-alone sculptures and as decorative elements in a variety of contexts. The figures are always forward-looking. Often one enlarges one’s head and emphasizes in particular the eyes that are to express the vitality that is considered to govern nature, in Melanesia called mana. By combining the images with song, dance, theater and music, people’s traditions and history were kept alive. The most common materials are wood, stone, bone and low-burned ceramics, which are often combined with mixed materials of bark, grass, teeth, feathers, shells, hair and turtle shells. (Metal was missing before the arrival of Europeans.) Check AbbreviationFinder.org for acronyms related to Australia.

Country Upcoming elections Turnout
Australia parliamentary elections by 2022 about 92% in the 2019 parliamentary elections
Fiji Parliamentary elections 2022 72 percent in the 2018 parliamentary elections, 85 percent in the 2014 parliamentary elections
Kiribati parliamentary elections 2024, presidential elections 2024 83 percent in the 2016 presidential election, 76 percent in the 2020 parliamentary election
Marshall Islands Parliamentary elections 2023 46% in the 2015 parliamentary elections, 38% in the 2019 parliamentary elections
Micronesia Federation congressional election 2021, presidential election 2023 33% in the 2017 congressional election
Nauru Parliamentary elections 2022 96% in the 2019 parliamentary elections, 82.5% in the 2016 parliamentary elections
New Zealand Parliamentary elections must be held by 2023 about 82% in the parliamentary elections in September 2020
Palau presidential and parliamentary elections 2024 63 percent in the 2016 parliamentary election, 49 percent in the presidential election (second round) 2020
Papua New Guinea Parliamentary elections 2022 77% in the 2012 parliamentary elections, no information is available for the 2017 parliamentary elections
Solomon Islands Parliamentary elections 2023 90 percent in the 2014 parliamentary elections, 67.5 percent in the 2019 parliamentary elections
Samoa parliamentary elections 2021, election of king 2022 87 percent in the 2011 parliamentary elections, 70 percent in the 2016 parliamentary elections
Tonga Parliamentary elections 2021 79 percent in the 2014 parliamentary elections, 67 percent in the 2017 parliamentary elections
Tuvalu Parliamentary elections 2023 data not available
Vanuatu Parliamentary elections 2024 56 percent in the 2016 parliamentary elections, 52 percent in the 2020 parliamentary elections

Ocean’s art is highly expressive rather than realistic. Its aim is to capture supernatural forces through emotional exaggerations, imaginative simplifications and pronounced vitality in form and color. The wealth of pictures could be a guarantee that man had the support of the forces of nature (Melanesia). The art of Micronesia is mainly limited to geometric ornaments of great linear beauty and design elegance. The rare three-dimensional figurative representations in Micronesia are geometrically constructed and very stylized in form (Central Carolinas). In Polynesia’s island world, figures representing gods or princes are common. They occur in a variety of local styles, usually very stylized in form, both in monumental (Easter Island) and in smaller formats (Samoa, Tahiti, Cook Islands, Hawaii). The original sculpture in New Zealand (Maori art) is over-decorated and grotesque, while in other archipelagos (Marquesa Islands, Tubuai Islands, Hawaii) it is more pure and abstract in character. Melanesia is the most productive style area. Extremely complicated and elaborate sculptures and masks are found in New Ireland, where imaginative spirit beings, malangans, were created in conjunction with recurring ceremonial celebrations. In Vanuatu, masks and sculptures belonged to secret men’s societies. at pig sacrifice. On the southwest Malekula in Vanuatu, the men’s individual rank was symbolized by large, highly stylized anthropomorphic figures. At the Trobrians, special care was given to carved and painted details on canoes and dance attributes. The art of New Guinea is created and stored in the villagers’ mansions.

Arts in New Zealand

New Zealand’s indigenous people, the Moors, are known for their woodcut and tattoo art. With simple tools, they decorated large ceremonial assembly houses in wood with rich carvings. Central to the Maori art are spiral arabesques and man-made tiki, which can be found in everything from jewelry and tools to carved panels and sculpted pillars in assembly houses.

Early European inspired visual arts from New Zealand are drawings and watercolors, often landscapes, by artists associated with James Cook’s travels in the latter half of the 18th century, including Sydney Parkinson and William Hodges. Topographical landscapes characterized the 19th century art. Painter John Kinder also produced some of the finest 19th century landscape photography from New Zealand in the 1860s. One of the foremost portrait painters of the 19th century, Gottfried Landauer (1839–1926), is best known for his portraits of the indigenous people. From the 1890s there is also an interest in history painting. One of the period’s most famous paintings, the arrival of the Maorese to New Zealand(1898), performed by Louis John Steeles and Charles Frederick Goldie, is clearly inspired by Théodore Géricault ‘s Medusa fleet from 1819.

Two influential artists in the 1920s and 1930s were Christopher Perkins and Robert Nettleton Field. Perkins’ landscapes show the contrast between untouched nature and industry destruction, and are executed in a harsh, sharp style. Two pioneering modernists, Toss Woollaston and Colin McCahon, painted landscapes in a naive and coarse, expressive style. McCahon later painted Bible motifs, done with thick black outlines and speech bubbles. Rita Angus painted small landscapes, flower paintings and portraits, including a number of self-portraits where she portrays herself in goddess form.

The foremost sculptors of the 1940s and 1950s, Molly Macalister and Alison Duft, show influence from both African and Polynesian woodcuts. Macalists also performed a number of public, monumental sculptures, including Maori wars (Auckland), inspired by modern Italian sculpture (Marino Marini and more). During the 1960s, a shift in New Zealand sculpture was noticed with Paul Beadle (1917–1992) and Greer Twiss (born 1937). The latter became a leading sculptor of his generation and performed a number of public works, including the Karangahape Road Fountain (1969, Auckland).

McCahon added something new to the art of painting after a visit to the United States in the late 1950s with abstract paintings applied to texts from poetry and biblical quotations, often with moral or environmental content. Other abstraction artists were John Weeks, Gordon Walters and Milan Mrkusich. Among other things, Walters worked on formalized versions of the Maori fern leaf motif.

The most prominent Maori artist, Ralph Hotere, paints minimalist-inspired images. Typical exponents of pop art are Richard Killeen and Ian Scott. From the 1970s a number of forms of expression were used in the visual arts based on media and performance.

Younger artists include Julia Morrison (born 1952), who works with alchemical and kabbalistic representations, made in materials such as ashes, metals, blood and excrement, and Ruth Watson (born 1962), who, based on the topography of the female body, revolves around the theme identity.

In sculpture, contemporary art is characterized by Moorish artists. Most prominent among these is the Paratene Moko Pyorongo Matchitt. In his work he combines traditional Maorite carving with expressions and techniques from international art.

Oceania Arts