The Last Kai (2022)
Tui Emma Gillies & Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows MNZMTwo sheets of Tongan Fete’aki (Tongan Tapa cloth), kupesi stencils, umea/red earth from Falevai, mangrove root dye, ink, acrylic paint and watercolours
It was very common to see the prints of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous work, The Last Supper, in people’s homes and I grew up seeing it in my pacific relatives’ households. It is a work many Polynesians have a special affinity with. And that had a lot to do with my and Sulieti’s urge to do our own version on Tongan tapa cloth.
The painting was a painstaking and labour-intensive endurance event as well as a creative firestorm that taught my mother, Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows, and myself so much about our own chosen art practices. The painting itself was a mammoth task. Sulieti and I used old kupesi stencils handed down from elders in Falevai for the background. The kupesi stencils are placed under the cloth, which is rubbed with brown umea dye made from red earth clay from Falevai. Then Sulieti concentrated on using traditional Tongan patterns for the borders and the flooring, while I focused on painting the supper itself in the glorious colours Polynesians often love to wear. The work measures approximately 5 metres by 2.5 metres and is painted on two sheets of feta’aki (plain tapa cloth).
It showcases our version of The Last Supper, with women included sitting around the table. It represents the Covid pandemic that we are all living through with masks being worn by some. We included women to show we are all equal and need fair representation.
“If The Last Supper was happening in this day and age, we’d hope to see a few more women sitting around the table. And maybe even one at the head of the table.”
-Tui Emma GilliesWoman on the Cross 2022AD (2022)
Tui Emma Gillies & Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows MNZMTwo sheets of Tongan Fete’aki (Tongan Tapa cloth), kupesi stencils, umea/ red earth from Falevai, ink, and acrylic paint
This is a work about the ongoing struggles of women and the pressures put on them by so many competing powers in this day and age. Society, tradition, culture, and religion are just some of the frameworks for projecting these expectations on women.
I am experimenting with placing women where we are used to seeing men, in this case, Jesus. Women can empathise with that feeling of having to carry the sins of the world on their shoulders. And by putting a woman on the cross instead of a man, I’m making a statement about the many sacrifices that women experience, that go unacknowledged.
After talking to many people about this work, I’ve realised it speaks to different people in different ways. For me, it’s about being a woman in modern society. With a piece like this, with the work being based on a very broad idea, all you can do is apply your best to your craft, and let it lead you where it will and let it talk to people as it, and they, see fit.
“I ultimately painted this work for everyone making daily sacrifices and feeling the pressure to conform to the expectations of society.”
-Tui Emma GilliesSurrounding the “Woman” in the piece, is a border meticulously painted by devout Christian and mother Sulieti. The layering of Tui and Sulieti’s painting styles, relationship to religion and experiences as Tongan woman, create an intergenerational conversation between the two artists. Using feta’aki as a canvas, adds to this back and forth, as a tradition that pre-dates the arrival of Christianity in Tonga and throughout the Pacific. Each element of the work in combination raises important issues about femininity, religion, and colonialism in the Pacific.
THE ARTISTS OF THE LAST KAI
Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows and Tui Emma Gillies are a Tongan New Zealand mother-and-daughter team that create tapa cloth. The duo’s art manifests through their shared passion for the arts and their close relationship, resulting in a hybrid style which harmonises traditional tapa with contemporary elements.
Their works expand into the contemporary realm through their physical and conceptual decision-making. Adding colour pigment onto designs that are traditionally black and brown, and looking at themes of femininity, nurturing, protection and spirituality, are just some of the ways they contemporise the tapa artform, bringing in modern-day concerns and interests.
Burrows and Gillies strive to utilise as many natural resources as they can, in tandem with modern materials. Tapa cloth itself is entirely decomposable, and the glue they use to paste each beaten piece together is mixed with tapioca starch, half-cooked until the texture is right. Again, approaching tapa with a modern twist, they use indian ink and acrylic paint to get saturated colour, creating works that revisit old ways of making and yet acknowledge new methods of cultural practice.
Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows MNZM is a generous Master creator of Tongan heritage arts who learnt many artistic skills from her mother, Ema Topeni. Ema taught her that what she makes must always be to a high quality standard.
Sulieti grew up in Falevai, Vava’u, Tonga before migrating to New Zealand in 1978 to live with her husband in South Auckland, till his death in 2013. Sulieti has worked on many successful artistic projects including making Kahoa Heilala necklaces, which were later acquired by Otago Museum and Auckland Museum. Sulieti also works as a mother-daughter tapa creating team with her daughter, Tui Emma Gillies and has Ngatu and Kupesi works in collections around the world including, The National Maritime Museum, GRASSI museum in Germany, National Gallery of Victory in Melbourne and Pick Museum of Anthropology in Illinois, USA. Sulieti received the Pasifika Heritage Art Award in 2018 alongside her daughter. Sulieti was made an MNZM in the New Zealand 2020 New Year’s honours for her services to Tongan art and education.
Tui Emma Gillies preserves her family’s ancestral DNA through the sacred ritual of tapa making. She is currently based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her work mixes contemporary with traditional and consequently, it can be challenging and confronting, yet always approached with respect to the roots of the medium and the ancestors who practised it before her.
Tui’s work can be found in significant museum and gallery collections around the globe including, USA, Germany, Melbourne, Auckland, and also in many private collections. In 2018, she and her mother Sulieti Fieme’a were the recipients of the highly coveted Creative New Zealand Pacific Heritage Art Award. In addition, mother and daughter duo helped to revive hiapo and the art of bark cloth making in Sulieti’s village Falevai, Vava’u, where the practice had vanished decades earlier.
Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows MNZM Tui Emma Gillies