Brush strokes
Profile of PNG artist Ratoos Haoapa Gary (pictured left).
Port Moresby-based contemporary artist Ratoos Haoapa Gary has been painting for more than 30 years and his works are in collections in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
Born in Eherekela in the Gulf Province in 1962, Ratoos belongs to the Elema people who originate around the Orokolo and Kerema Bays on the Gulf of Papua.
The Elema are recognised for their powers of sorcery. With the arrival of the missionaries, however, traditional Elema culture was forbidden and much of the art-making culture was also lost.
This makes Ratoos’ paintings all the more fascinating, as he is one of the few contemporary artists from the Papuan Gulf who continues to express the beliefs and traditions of his ancestors through his paintings.
At the same time, the fluidity and dream-like quality of his work is reminiscent of the paintings of Joan Miro and the mobiles of Alexander Calder.
While collections of carved spirit boards and large processional masks from the Elema are in important ethnographic collections of Papua New Guinean art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and in the De Young Museum in San Francisco, Ratoos’ work with dots and lines follows the body painting tradition, rather than wood carving or masks.
“My paintings dance with the spirit. They vibrate with interlocking images of patterns, which represent bush tracks, insects, animals and people. They portray stories of heroes, changing forms across time boundaries and cycles in nature.”
There are three main elements to his work: fluid lines creating fantastic shapes, incredible colours from the lush landscape and ocean floor, and a vibrancy of movement.
“For me the dot is the beginning of movement. The dot is the source of life and expresses the spirit. In combination, dots represent clans and images in a relationship that binds them together. I have developed my own style, integrating dot-screening effects from photography, where size and distance are created.
The path Ratoos’ took from country boy to artist was not an easy one.
“I was not good at school, left home and went to Port Moresby at 15, where I was a street kid. I actually picked up a brush on the street and started playing around with painting.”
He got involved with theatre during the South Pacific Festival in 1980, and Australian teacher and theatre practitioner Gary Stonehenge recognised his potential and helped him to study at the University of Wollongong, where he graduated with an Associate Diploma in Arts in 1984. Ratoos was so grateful for Stonehenge’s mentorship that he named one of his sons after him.
Ratoos continued his studies at the Eora Centre for Arts in Sydney and connected with a number of Aboriginal artists.
“This was the most enriching element of my time in Australia. I felt empowered learning about Aboriginal land rights, which is very important for a Black person. Australia gave me that path.”
Ratoos returned to PNG in the 1990s and became a visual arts teacher at Kerevat Senior High School, near Rabaul in East New Britain. Later he became an artist in residence at the International Education Agency. He has now resigned from teaching to concentrate on his art full time and to do intensive research into the art of the Papuan Gulf and how it connects different languages and tribes. He is particularly interested in studying the symbolism of each tribe, the importance of different animals and plants, and how this symbolism connects to tribes in other provinces.
“So much of our culture was changed by the missionaries, but I still remember that my great uncle was a protector of the environment, including the ocean. He used to regularly call in on the fish to ensure they were doing well.”
Marianne Witzig, creator of the Witzig Gallery in Maclean on the NSW north coast, is a staunch supporter of contemporary PNG art.
My paintings dance with the spirit. They vibrate with interlocking images of patterns, which represent bush tracks, insects, animals and people. They portray stories of heroes, changing forms across time boundaries
and cycles in nature.
A planner, who also works for the New Ireland Provincial Government, she has one of the most significant private collections of contemporary New Guinea art in the world. She not only represents more than 40 artists but she also helps supply much-needed quality materials for their art making. In the case of Ratoos, she brings him Jim Thompson silks from Thailand and fine Spanish fabric inks.
“I bought my first Ratoos piece in 1997 and have been collecting his work ever since. His work is unique and particularly vibrant when produced on fabric. Ideally, I find his paintings most powerful when they are a hung scroll, so the material can flow in the breeze with the natural light flowing through them.”
Even though so much traditional culture has been lost in PNG, she says it is amazing how many customs continue to be passed down through the generations. “Art offers a connection to the land and a celebration of life.”
Ratoos had his first solo show, called Meuori Hahikao – Message Carrier, at the Creative Arts Gallery of the University of PNG in Port Moresby in 2001. The theme was Ove
Horelave or Rising Spirit. He wanted to express how PNG culture is very much alive and to show the next generation that in order to develop new forms of expression they must understand and interact with the past as a means of preserving their identity.
There was a significant flowering of contemporary art during the time of Papuan New Guinea independence in 1975 but sadly this has floundered. “There is no skills development program for artists and nowhere to show art in Papua New Guinea,” he says.
“I try to communicate the sense of joy of our culture whilst also confronting difficulties. Art is very important in human life. Art helps create change in any culture.”