Ngati Tuwharetoa, Tongan
Victor believes that “Art is my voice, it allows me to speak and express myself in ways that sometimes words cannot”.
He was born in 1975 at Whangarei and currently lives in Wellington where he works fulltime as an artist.
He draws on his ancestry while making his artistic journey, so that while he is more familiar with his Maori heritage he acknowledges his Tongan ancestry through the use of rectilinear designs and motifs found throughout Polynesia and which are recurring themes within his work.
In 1997 he began to study Maori Art & Design at Whangarei’s Northland Polytechnic under the guidance of head tutors Manos Nathan, Allen Wihongi and Garry Whiting. In 2002 he moved to Gisborne and completed the Diploma of Maori Visual Arts & Design at Toihoukura, part of Te Tairawhiti Polytechnic, under the guidance of head tutors Derek Lardelli and Steve Gibbs.
In 2006 Victor graduated as an inaugural student of the Maunga Kura Toi-Bachelor of Maori Arts degree at the Toimairangi School of Maori Visual Culture, Te Wananga O Aotearoa in Hastings, under the guidance of head tutor Sandy Adsett.
Since 2002 his work has been exhibited widely in group exhibitions at public and dealer galleries throughout the North Island, among them Lower Hutt’s Dowse Art Museum, Gisborne’s Tairawhiti Museum, the Hastings City Art Gallery, Auckland’s Mataora Gallery, Napier’s Scott Ormond Gallery and Wellington’s Iwi Art Gallery and Tinakori Gallery. His work has also been shown at the New Zealand High Commission in Vancouver and the Science Centre in Singapore.
In 2005 he had a solo show Wahine Purotu at Te Raukura-The Red Feather Gallery in Rotorua, and a two person show with Davina Tana, Na Te Puna – from the spring, Maori clay work and painting, at Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures in Porirua. In 2010 he exhibited with Karl Leonard in Manawataki – layers of rhythm, at Iwi Art, Wellington.
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