Salome Tanuvasa, Untitled. Acrylic on paper, 42 x 60cm. Courtesy: the artist and Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland.

In Salome Tanuvasa’s fourth solo exhibition at Tim Melville, To Find, Meet, she presents four new paintings on canvas at a larger scale than we are used to seeing, alongside a suite of framed works on paper.

Describing her process, Tanuvasa writes:

“Creating art requires time and space. Both things are in flow as I work within my own space – mental and physical – searching and reflecting on the work and on my current living situation. The constant balancing and re-balancing of family and work schedules – making time – has led me to understand that I need more room to further my practice. This time, the back yard is my studio. As I paint I think about the marks, the strokes – searching for something satisfying – my inner dialogue, intention, scale, form, size, colour, shape, action, gesture – and always always my surroundings. The garden, the trees, the atmosphere. These are the thoughts and concerns that revolve around my internal conversations. I hope the weather holds as I hang my paintings on the washing-line to dry. How do you become an artist at a time when housing and jobs are in such a critical state? “To find, meet” are words that are on my mind. Truth to process. Finding ways around barriers is all I can do.”

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