{{Short description|New Zealand-Australian artist}} {{use dmy dates|date=February 2023}} {{use Australian English|date=February 2023}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = Angela Tiatia | honorific_suffix = | image = Angela Tiatia in A Body of Work.webp | alt = | caption = Tiatia in ''A Body of Work'', in 2018 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = | birth_place = Auckland, New Zealand | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | residence = | education = {{Plainlist| * University of Auckland * Auckland University of Technology}} | alma_mater = | known_for = | notable_works = {{Plainlist| * ''Walking the Wall'' (2014) * ''Heels'' (2014) * ''The Fall'' (2017)}} | style = | home_town = | movement = | spouse = | partner = | awards = | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = <!-- {{URL|www.angelatiatia.com}} --> | module = }} '''Angela Tiatia''' (born 1973) is a New Zealand-Australian artist.
She works with paint, sculpture, video installation, and performance art. Tiatia's work explores contemporary culture, with particular attention paid to that culture's interactions with gender, race, and neocolonialism.
Tiatia's work has frequently been singled out on a national and international stage. Her 2017 installations, ''The Fall'', was met with widespread acclaim and critical recognition.
== Early life and education== Tiatia was born 1973 in Auckland, New Zealand. Her great-grandfather was a Chinese immigrant to Samoa.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Angela Tiatia |url=https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/apt8/artists/angela-tiatia |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123175823/https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/apt8/artists/angela-tiatia |archive-date=23 January 2021 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=QAGOMA}}</ref> Tiatia's mother emigrated to Auckland from Samoa in the 1960s in order to find a job in a factory as part of a government push to bolster the country's growing economy.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Syfret |first=Wendy |date=15 September 2016 |title=the art of otherness: inside angela tiatia's war on labels |url=https://i-d.co/article/the-art-of-otherness-inside-angela-tiatias-war-on-labels/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429132621/https://i-d.vice.com/en_au/article/a3v9gp/the-art-of-otherness-inside-angela-tiatias-war-on-labels |archive-date=29 April 2021 |access-date=13 May 2018 |work=i-D |language=en-au}}</ref>
Tiatia studied commerce at the University of Auckland, graduating in 2002. In 2010, she graduated from Auckland University of Technology (AUT), with a degree in visual arts.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last= |date=14 June 2016 |title=Angela Tiatia |url=https://www.vividsydney.com/speaker/angela-tiatia |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180513152146/https://www.vividsydney.com/speaker/angela-tiatia |archive-date=13 May 2018 |access-date=13 May 2018 |work=Vivid Sydney |language=en}}</ref> While much of the artist's later career has been defined by her video and photographic work, her application to AUT was based around her painting.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lee |first=Bri |date=2018 |title=Forecast - Angela Tiatia |url=https://www.sullivanstrumpf.com/assets/Uploads/VAULT-Issue-25-Forecast-Angela-Tiatia.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230606025921/https://www.sullivanstrumpf.com/assets/Uploads/VAULT-Issue-25-Forecast-Angela-Tiatia.pdf |archive-date=6 June 2023 |access-date=27 March 2019 |work=Vault |pages=126–127 |via=Sullivan+Strumpf |issue=25}}</ref>
=== Modelling career === Tiatia's mother was wary of her daughter beginning a career in the arts, which she considered a difficult field with not much hope of financial security. Tiatia instead chose to pursue a career in modeling in her teens and early twenties. In 2019 she told I-D magazine that the experience served as a parallel to her religious upbringing, "The sense of control that was over my body as a Christian woman was completely different too: I was told how to cover up and what to eat. On the flip side to that you'd think there was a lot of freedom in the fashion industry, but I was under immense control. Again I was told what to wear, what to eat and how my body was to look."<ref name=":3" /> These two systems gave her an understanding of what she described as a lack of female agency over their own bodies. Tiatia no longer considers herself religious, citing her experience as a questioning child in Sunday school as an example of the curious nature that led her away from her Christian upbringing.<ref name=":3" />
Tiatia later addressed the similarities and contradictions of the religious and modelling worlds in her 2014 art pieces ''Heels'' and ''Walking the Wall'', which see her openly displaying her sacred ''malu,'' or female-specific Samoan tattoo. For Tiatia, this demonstration meant confronting a cultural taboo from her childhood while simultaneously embracing and examining the symbols of female agency that she had come across in her modeling.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Walking the Wall, 2014 |url=http://www.angelatiatia.com/work#11 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506083534/http://www.angelatiatia.com/work#11 |archive-date=6 May 2024 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=Angela Tiatia}}</ref>
== Career == Tiatia intends her work to call attention to culture's interaction with the commodification of body and place brought on by neocolonialism.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Angela Tiatia |url=http://www.angelatiatia.com/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231206170200/http://www.angelatiatia.com/ |archive-date=6 December 2023 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=Angela Tiatia}}</ref> She said in 2018 that her art is meant to examine "how the Pacific body/place/experience has been stereotyped through images/media/popular culture/art over the last 150 years. Within this time frame, I explore ways in which I can challenge these stereotypes and create new narratives and imagery. As well as this, I also look at the universality of the human experience and the human condition that binds us all."<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=2018 |title=Humans of the Islands - Angela Tiatia |url=https://www.thecoconet.tv/coco-talanoa/humans-of-the-islands/humans-of-the-islands-angela-tiatia/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221106195805/https://www.thecoconet.tv/coco-talanoa/humans-of-the-islands/humans-of-the-islands-angela-tiatia/ |archive-date=6 November 2022 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=The Coconet}}</ref>
Tiatia's focus on neo-colonialism also takes into account the increasing wealth gap in international economics. "The gradual nature of this growing inequality is deceiving because it normalises the problem - we don't notice the change because it's incremental," she said in 2014. Tiatia considers her work an opportunity to spark conversation about this issue.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Portela |first=Noelia |date=17 October 2014 |title=An Interview with Angela Tiatia |url=http://enjoy.org.nz/blog/2014/10/an-interview-with-angela-tiatia |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231205225950/http://enjoy.org.nz/blog/2014/10/an-interview-with-angela-tiatia |archive-date=5 December 2023 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=Enjoy Contemporary Art Space}}</ref>
Tiatia has been casting the same actors in her films since ''The Fall,'' made in 2017, effectively building strong communities and lasting relationships. 'Each work is an opportunity to check in on each other, the artist tells ''Ocula Magazine''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wilson |first=Emma-Kate |date=3 November 2021 |title=Angela Tiatia Responds to Henri Matisse |url=https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/angela-tiatia-responds-to-henri-matisse/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601174939/https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/angela-tiatia-responds-to-henri-matisse/ |archive-date=1 June 2023 |access-date=2 December 2021 |website=Ocula Magazine |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1"/>
In June 2018, Tiatia was awarded the Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize, the richest professional art prize for women in Australia.<ref name=":1">{{cite web |date=15 June 2018 |title=Past Prizes - 2018 |url=https://www.ravenswoodartprize.com.au/artprize/2018-finalists-1 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240313170022/https://www.ravenswoodartprize.com.au/artprize/2018-finalists-1 |archive-date=13 March 2024 |access-date=2 February 2023 |website=Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize}}</ref> The award, valued at $35,000, was granted on the basis of Tiatia's video installation ''The Fall'', a production inspired by the Fall of Singapore.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Morris |first=Linda |date=5 June 2018 |title=Winner of Australia's richest women's arts prize named |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/winner-of-australia-s-richest-women-s-arts-prize-named-20180614-p4zlda.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211022194714/https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/winner-of-australia-s-richest-women-s-arts-prize-named-20180614-p4zlda.html |archive-date=22 October 2021 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=The Sydney Morning Herald}}</ref> In a single take, the five-minute film uses a cast of 30 performers, playing 60 characters, to tell the story of the 1942 battle in a full 360-degree navigation of the space, ending with Tiatia and her camera crew's own image.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /> While the work was commissioned by the Australian War Memorial with the intention of telling a specific historical story, Tiatia also considered ''The Fall'' an opportunity to hold a mirror up to modern political turmoil.<ref name=":4" /> She wanted the project to be a reminder of the failings of history, and hoped that audiences would gain a new understanding of alternate historical outcomes as a part of their examination of the project.<ref name=":5" />
Her work has been spotlighted by several national and international exhibitions, including the National Museum of Singapore, the 57th Venice Biennale, and the Queensland Art Gallery.<ref name=":0" />
Tiatia's works are held in the collections of Queensland Art Gallery,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tiatia, Angela |url=https://collection.qagoma.qld.gov.au/creators/tiatia-angela |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230925160413/https://collection.qagoma.qld.gov.au/creators/tiatia-angela |archive-date=25 September 2023 |access-date=8 May 2024 |website=Queensland Art Gallery}}</ref> National Gallery of Victoria,<ref name=":0" /> Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hibiscus Rosa Sinensis - Angela Tiatia, 2010 |url=https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1603738 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509004559/https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1603738 |archive-date=9 May 2024 |access-date=1 December 2023 |website=Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa}}</ref> Christchurch Art Gallery,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014 |title=Angela Tiatia - Heels |url=https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/2021162/angela-tiatia/heels |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202222056/https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/2021162/angela-tiatia/heels |archive-date=2 December 2023 |access-date=1 December 2023 |website=Christchurch Art Gallery}}</ref> The University of Queensland,<ref>{{Cite web |date=29 September 2022 |title=Collection highlight: 'Hibiscus Rosa Sinensis' by Angela Tiatia |url=https://art-museum.uq.edu.au/article/2022/07/collection-highlight-%E2%80%9Chibiscus-rosa-sinensis%E2%80%9D-angela-tiatia |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240316075732/https://art-museum.uq.edu.au/article/2022/07/collection-highlight-%E2%80%9Chibiscus-rosa-sinensis%E2%80%9D-angela-tiatia |archive-date=16 March 2024 |access-date=1 December 2023 |website=University of Queensland |language=en}}</ref> Art Gallery of New South Wales,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Works by Angela Tiatia |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=tiatia-angela |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509021919/https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=tiatia-angela |archive-date=9 May 2024 |access-date=8 May 2024 |website=Art Gallery of New South Wales}}</ref> Museum of Contemporary Art,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Angela Tiatia |url=https://www.mca.com.au/collection/artists/angela-tiatia/ |access-date=8 May 2024 |website=Museum of Contemporary Art Australia |language=en}}</ref> Australian Museum,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Vince |first=Claire |date=19 October 2023 |title=The Australian Museum celebrates deep cultural connections with the Pacific in its new permanent gallery: <em>Wansolmoana</em> |url=https://australian.museum/about/organisation/media-centre/wansolmoana/australian.museum/about/organisation/media-centre/wansolmoana/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240201003514/https://australian.museum/about/organisation/media-centre/wansolmoana/ |archive-date=1 February 2024 |access-date=8 May 2024 |website=Australian Museum |language=en}}</ref> Australian Centre for the Moving Image,<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Dark Current {{!}} Angela Tiatia {{!}} 2023 |url=https://www.acmi.net.au/works/122458--the-dark-current/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240410000231/https://www.acmi.net.au/works/122458--the-dark-current/ |archive-date=10 April 2024 |access-date=8 May 2024 |website=ACMI |language=en}}</ref> Australian War Memorial Museum,<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Fall |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2614642 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509024217/https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2614642 |archive-date=9 May 2024 |access-date=8 May 2024 |website=Australian War Memorial |language=en |quote=Maker: Tiatia, Angela}}</ref> Canberra Institute of Contemporary Art and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Artist - Angela Tiatia - Biography |url=https://www.sullivanstrumpf.com/artists/angela-tiatia |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240226131911/https://www.sullivanstrumpf.com/artists/angela-tiatia |archive-date=26 February 2024 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=Sullivan + Strumpf |language=en}}</ref>
== Awards and accolades == Along with recognition for ''The Fall'', in 2011 Tiatia was a finalist for the Bold Horizons National Art Award. She has also been a finalist for the John Fries Award twice (in 2016 and 2017).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016 |title=2016 Finalist Gallery |url=http://www.johnfriesaward.com/2016-finalist-gallery/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230930003006/http://www.johnfriesaward.com/2016-finalist-gallery/ |archive-date=30 September 2023 |access-date=13 May 2018 |website=John Fries Award |language=en-AU}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2017 |title=2017 Finalist Gallery |url=http://www.johnfriesaward.com/2017-finalist-gallery/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230927123052/http://www.johnfriesaward.com/2017-finalist-gallery/ |archive-date=27 September 2023 |access-date=13 May 2019 |website=John Fries Award |language=en-AU}}</ref> In 2017 she was a finalist for the Paramor Prize: Art + Innovation, and in 2018 she was a finalist for the Archibald Prize.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Angela Tiatia is a visual artist, with a practice that is only expanding in scope |url=http://www.tautai.org/artist/angela-tiatia/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200201180344/http://www.tautai.org/artist/angela-tiatia/ |archive-date=1 February 2020 |access-date=13 May 2018 |work=Tautai - Guiding Pacific Arts |language=en-US}}</ref>
In October 2018 she announced as the recipient of the 2018 Creative New Zealand Contemporary Pacific Artist Award.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Artists - News - Angela Tiatia - Congratulations - 9/11/18 |url=https://www.sullivanstrumpf.com/artists/angela-tiatia/news |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230606025921/https://www.sullivanstrumpf.com/artists/angela-tiatia/news |archive-date=6 June 2023 |website=Sullivan + Strumpf |quote=Angela Tiatia - Winner of the 2018 Creative New Zealand Contemporary Pacific Artist Award}}</ref> Presented by the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa, the award is one of the only national awards for Pasifika artists across all art forms.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Arts Pasifika Awards - Pacific Contemporary Artist Award - Angela Tiatia (2018) |url=https://creativenz.govt.nz/funding-and-support/results/award-winners/arts-pasifika-awards |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240504234048/https://creativenz.govt.nz/funding-and-support/results/award-winners/arts-pasifika-awards |archive-date=4 May 2024 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=Creative New Zealand}}</ref> It recognises "an artist who has demonstrated innovation, who has continually pushed the boundaries of their practice, and who has achieved excellence in their field."<ref name=":6" />
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tiatia, Angela}} Category:Living people Category:Auckland University of Technology alumni Category:University of Auckland alumni Category:Artists from Auckland Category:New Zealand people of Samoan descent Category:Archibald Prize finalists Category:1973 births