Loan (Exhibition)
Display in 'Oceania: Imagining the Pacific' Exhibition. August - November 2011.
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (CMS Context)
Purchased with assistance of the Art Fund and the Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Fund.
(Bio) Timothy Akis, c.1944-1989, was born in Tsembaga village, Simbai Valley, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. As a young man, while working as an interpreter for visiting anthropologist Georgeda Buchbinder, he began to identify local plants and animals by making small drawings. Impressed by this creativity, Buchbinder brought Akis to Port Moresby and introduced him to Australian artist Georgina Beier. She invited him to work in her studio and encouraged him to create images drawn from his imagination. Akis delighted in letting his hand flow spontaneously, and he quickly developed a lively repertoire of cassowaries, lizards, and other creatures inspired by the wild life of his mountain home. Six weeks later, he held his first exhibition at the University of Papua New Guinea. He was the first Papua New Guinean artist to hold an exhibition, at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1969, and he later held exhibitions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Philippines and Australia. His work inspired other New Guinea artists such as Mathias Kauage, also form the Highlands.
Akis's earliest images are lively black and white drawings and limited print editions were made of this work. However, as his work developed, he also became interested in colour and began to tell "stories" about his increasingly elaborate imagery. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Akis divided his time between subsistence farming in his native village and working on his art in Port Moresby. Akis's work has continued to be exhibited posthumously. In 1989, drawings from the Hugh Stevenson collection toured the Pacific in the Exhibition "Luk Luk Gen"; in 2001, his work was included in an exhibition of prints by leading indigenous artists from Australia and the South Pacific entitled "Islands in the Sun" at the National Gallery of Australia; and in 1990 several original drawings and prints were included in the exhibition "Mak Bilong Ol" shown at the University of Nijmegen and other venues in The Netherlands. Examples of his work in MAA have been exhibited in the Museum in Cambridge as well as in New Zealand at the 'Oceania: Early Encounters', exhibition, Wellington Art Gallery, 6 August- 30 October 2011'. Biographical details taken from Alcheringa Gallery website, 2/12/2012

Event Date 22/6/2011
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Colour screen-print by Timothy Akis, titled 'Paraiminista Somare toktok wantaim Niu Siland hai Komisina'. Edition 36/40.
Event Date 22/6/2011
Author: maa

Context (CMS Context)
Exhibited: On loan to 'Oceania: Early Encounters', Wellington City Gallery as part of the 'Oceania' exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa to co-incide with the rugby world cup, 6 August- 30 October 2011
Event Date 27/1/2015
Author: Rachel Hand