John Pule

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Pule, born in Liku, Niue in 1962[1] [2], is a Niuean artist, novelist and poet.[3] He has lived in Auckland, New Zealand since the age of 3. The Queensland Art Gallery describes him as "one of the Pacific's most significant artists".[4]


Contents

[edit] Literature

Describing the beginning of his literary career, Pule explained:

“I just wanted to write about growing up in New Zealand, and about being the youngest of 17 kids and about migration—but I wasn’t sure how to organize ideas, so I just started writing.”[5]

He also described his writing as a means of "decolonizing his mind".[6] His work expresses his experience as a Niuean in New Zealand:

“My heart and my thoughts were always on Niue. But here I was living in Aotearoa on someone else’s land. Writing helped change me, painting helped change me. I went back to Niue as often as I could, and I’d weed and clear the graves for my family and friends’ families. It’s a way of saying I’m back. [...] We go back home [to Niue] with our Nikes and our jeans and we think we know things. But the local people just think we’re stupid. They know where all the trees are and the pathways and where the mythologies and the stories live.”[7]

Pule's first novel, The Shark that Ate the Sun (Ko E Mago Ne Kai E La)[8], was published in 1992. Burn My Head in Heaven[9] (Tugi e ulu haaku he langi) followed in 2000, and Restless people (Tagata kapakiloi) in 2004.

His published poetry includes Sonnets to Van Gogh and Providence (1982), Flowers after the Sun (1984) and Bond of Time (1985).[10]

[edit] Artwork

Pule's artwork includes painting, drawing, printmaking, film-making and performance. The topics of his work include Niuean cosmology and Christianity, as well as perspectives on migration and colonialism.[11]

His work comprises both painting on canvass and bark cloth painting, a traditional Polynesian artform.[12]

He was a guest professor of creative writing at the University of Hawai‘i in the spring of 2002.[13]

In 2005, he co-wrote Hiapo: Past and present in Niuean barkcloth, a study of a traditional Niuean artform, with Australian writer and anthropologist Nicholas Thomas.[14]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Description of John Pule's painting Kulukakina (after experiencing something miraculous, withdraw), 2004 on the Queensland Art Gallery's website
  2. ^ John Pule in the The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature
  3. ^ University of Otago
  4. ^ Description of John Pule's painting Kulukakina (after experiencing something miraculous, withdraw), 2004 on the Queensland Art Gallery's website
  5. ^ "The Bifocal World of John Pule: This Niuean Writer and Painter Is Still Searching For A Place To Call Home", Scott Whitney, Pacific Magazine, July 1, 2002
  6. ^ "The Bifocal World of John Pule: This Niuean Writer and Painter Is Still Searching For A Place To Call Home", Scott Whitney, Pacific Magazine, July 1, 2002
  7. ^ "The Bifocal World of John Pule: This Niuean Writer and Painter Is Still Searching For A Place To Call Home", Scott Whitney, Pacific Magazine, July 1, 2002
  8. ^ ISBN 0140172041
  9. ^ ISBN 0140273743
  10. ^ John Pule in the The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature
  11. ^ Description of John Pule's painting Kulukakina (after experiencing something miraculous, withdraw), 2004 on the Queensland Art Gallery's website
  12. ^ "The Bifocal World of John Pule: This Niuean Writer and Painter Is Still Searching For A Place To Call Home", Scott Whitney, Pacific Magazine, July 1, 2002
  13. ^ "The Bifocal World of John Pule: This Niuean Writer and Painter Is Still Searching For A Place To Call Home", Scott Whitney, Pacific Magazine, July 1, 2002
  14. ^ University of Otago