Fijian Art: Traditional Roots, Contemporary Expression, and a Source of Livelhood
(written by Emma Scanlan, SIT Fiji, Fall 2008. Advisore: Jakki Leota-Ete. Academic Director:
Taomi Tapu-Qiliho. Abstract (extract page 20 of 34 from online pdf article).
Marita Brodie, a South African born woman who has been living in Fiji since 1979, is a self taught artist who began oil painting in 1997. Her home in Toorak was a shrine to her paintings (much to her chagrin, as she explained lack of display space in and around Suva forces her to hang them mainly in her home). Her works are as diverse in style, content and media as a Van Gogh is from a Monet. From oil paintings, watercolors, to pieces made completely of shredded leather.
Marita pushes the boundaries and keeps things interesting for herself, painting what “she feels that day”. Many of her pieces are traditionally Fijian in theme – images of idyllic village scenes, bures, masi patterns, and the all alluring nude Pacific woman. She explained the roots of women’s importance in the traditional Pacific art scene and attributes that fact to one of the reasons why women in the Pacific are able to control this sphere. It isn’t so much that women artists are subordinate in an art culture, it’s more that women in Pacific culture in general are subordinate to men.
She explained that art didn’t fit in with Pacific man’s “macho” agenda, and that a small sector (like wood carving) of the arts is what stereotypically and acceptably exists for men. The Vasu: Pacific Women of Power exhibition provided Marita with a space and group of people with whom she could share artistic ideas and collaborate with. She called the exhibition “progressive:” and was thrilled and honored to have been a part of it. “I am now really home. I am now a part of Fiji”, she said.
