Notice of Exhibition and Artist Talk
JULIAN HOOPER - liliu
12th November – 14th December 2007.
E-North Gallery is proud to present Julian Hooper’s liliu in Whangarei following its exhibition in turbulence: 3rd
Auckland triennial and recent tour to Monash University Faculty Gallery, Melbourne.
In the Tongan language, liliu means to change or transform. It is the title Julian Hooper gives to a collection of
small-scale drawings and collages juxtaposing real and imagined episodes from the tumultuous life of an ancestor who
migrated from Europe to the Pacific. Fast-drying and portable, watercolour was the preferred medium for colonial
painters to diarise their impressions in sketchbooks. Hooper uses it for these associations, just as he uses the extant
visual language of traditional ngatu, the dyed mulberry bark Tongan tapa to denote the patterns of the Pacific.
“I have a keen sense of my ancestral history, yet also a sense that I have the opportunity to work it out for myself, to
argue it, to create it. It is the degree of the unknown that inspires me. I am primarily interested in following my
imagination, ignited by an historical record and fuelled by a love of images”. Julian Hooper
Artist Talk: Monday the 12th of November 2008 @ 4pm.
Julian Hooper will be presenting a talk about Liliu and his art practice
@ E-North Whangarei Art Museum Outreach Gallery, 7 Rust Ave., Whangarei.
ends