MICHEL TUFFERY MNZM

Tuffery exceeds the boundaries of contemporary media, collaborating on installation and performance artworks that traverse cultural boundaries and defy concrete categorisation. His woodcuts, lithographs, drawings, paintings on tapa cloth and canvas, sculpture, performances and emblematic carvings
are the artistic offerings of a keen historian and active participator in contemporary culture. Tuffery’s art has always been and continues to be a forum for active cross-­‐ cultural discussion and a space in which ideas and questions are scrutinised and concepts realised, generally through the conflation of both Polynesian and European motifs and symbols, allowing the artist to respond to stories relating to migration, assimilation, colonisation, independence, community and family, and what it means to be a Pacific Islander on a global stage.

Visibility has been achieved through awards, commissions, international residencies and exhibitions where his art is held in numerous public and private collections. Selected solo and group exhibitions include: Made in Oceania: Tapa – Art and Social Landscapes Rautenstrauch-­‐Joest-­‐Museum, Koln, Germany (2013); Pulima Arts Festival, Taipei, Taiwan (2012); Nga Kina, Kumutoto, Wellington Waterfront, Wellington Sculpture Trust (2012); C3West Project, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2012); Siamani Samoa, Andrew Baker Gallery, Brisbane, Australia (2012); Volta, New York, USA (2012); First Contact Architectural Projection, New Zealand International Art Festival in partnership with The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (2012); Edge of Elsewhere, Campbelltown Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2012); Siamani Samoa, Pataka Museum of Arts and Culture, Porirua, NZ (2011); Lakapi, New Zealand High Commission, Apia, Samoa (2011); Siamani Samoa Installation, Apia and Lalomanu, Samoa (2011); Oceania, City Gallery Wellington, NZ (2011); Nui Pasifik Warrior, Casula Powerhouse, Sydney, Australia (2011); This is not a Vitrine_this is an Ocean Exhibition, Waikato Museum, Hamilton, NZ (2011); Povi Vasa, Edge of Elsewhere, Sydney, Australia (2011); First Contact, ANZ Building, Chifley Square, Sydney, Australia (2011); Tiaho -­‐ Contemporary Photography from Oceania, The Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (2010); Nui Pasifik – Urban Art from the Pacific Rim, Gorman University Art Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2010); Manuia, The American Indian Community House, New York, USA (2010); Art in the Contemporary Pacific – The Great Journey, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2009).