artist profile
John Pule
born
1962
lives and works
Auckland, New Zealand
about the artist
In the written word and the painted image, poet and artist John Pule travels an earnest quest for his heritage, which has resulted in an intimate body of work that capitalizes, and subsequently inflects, on the visual culture and artistic imagery drawn from Niuean cosmology, mythology, genealogy, and ethnology. Vignettes of figuration emerge between fields of abstraction as Pule maps out an interwoven narrative of colonialism, Christianity, and migration. Named one of the most important voices in the Pacific diaspora, Pule’s creative output encompasses works of art, printmaking, poetry, and novels. His enterprise has taken him all over the world, where he has published books and anthologies, completed art as well as writing residencies, and participated in numerous art exhibitions. He has presented solo exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia, and Switzerland, including important museum shows at the City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand, and the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, New Zealand. His work has been included in prominent group exhibitions held at Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia; the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki in Auckland, New Zealand; the Asia Society Museum in New York, USA; and the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, Germany.