The Pasefika Tote Bag

The first painting of every year is significant.
It sets the tone, mood, style, and benchmark for the year.

The Cleaner was my first for 2024.

It’s a figurative painting of a woman with a broom.
She wears only a lavalava and a sei.

Inspirations.

1. I fell in love with a sculpture by Italian artist Ernesto Coter while eating in his kitchen at Santa Maria Rezzonico a few weeks earlier. The sculpture was sitting on the sideboard beside his dining table. He said it is a Samoan woman dancing. This painting is a response to the sculpture (Pic 5)

2. A new year inspires a fresh look at life, reassessment, and decluttering. It’s not the first time my first painting for a new year has included a broom. It’s about spring cleaning your life as a new year begins.

3. Spending time with my family gave me a fresh respect for two of my sisters who each successfully run their own cleaning businesses in Queensland. It’s more interesting and complex work than I expected, and what they do for their clients is admirable.
I wanted to honour cleaners so I painted gold behind her head to show she is iconic.
And she had a gold broom.

4. Samoans sweep everything regularly – the beach, the grass the house, and everything.

5. A woman with a broom is a timeless and common sight in the background of every culture and every age. I want to uplift and highlight this symbol.
As a goddess. With an iconic halo.
We have often been this person and often see this person. And they’re important and essential.
They get rid of crap and they make the world more beautiful.
Goddesses.

6. I painted a blue ocean type background because I was seeing a lot from the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai, while painting. Many people I know were there representing island nations of the Pacific Ocean.

INSPIRATION
Mangoes are always special.
Fancy. Soft. Sweet. Round.
Celebratory and luxurious.

So this is what I infused in the figures, tones, and shapes.
It feels warm and sweet and happy.

I learned so much about mangoes doing this painting.
Eg.
🥭The paisley pattern on bandanas originates from mangoes.
🥭The leaves from a mango tree are believed to repel negative energy and attract prosperity and fertility in India where the mango is believed to originate.

ARTWORK
The starting point was the heads of the women, which followed an exact formation of mangoes hanging on a tree. Everything went from this point.

I used the colours of mangoes: orange, yellow, red, green, coral, purple. Tropical, sweet and glowy.

I used the curvy shapes of oval mangoes, long pointy leaves, and delicate long red stems laden with pale yellow tiny mango flowers.

Metallic colours of gold and copper added luxe and celebration.

This is the story of Mango Fandango.
(I used fandango in the sense of fun, party and dance).

• I was staring at banana trees when I started painting this and deciding on a colour palette.

Yellows, greens and browns. Not colours I usually use but you can’t argue with nature’s beauty.

Then the title just seemed so obvious and perfect.

Misiluki is Samoan for Lady Finger bananas.
Lady Fingers. Five digits on a hand and five is the number of sisters I paint over and over again.

This bunch of five sisters are all grown up.