Indigenous Art by Ratoos Haoapa Gary Papua New Guinea (PNG)

1. Spirits Rising from the Water 1977
2. Kingfisher 1977
3. Bird of Paradise 1977
Indigenous Artist Ratoos Haoapa Gary
Medium Hanhnemeule cotton Archival Paper. Epson k3 ink. Item Dimensions 267mm x 395mm
Ratoos Haoapa Gary is a respected veteran artist and teacher. Ratoos belongs to the tribe known as the Elema people who originate around Orokolo and Kerema Bays near the shores of the Gulf of Papua. He has travelled extensively in PNG and Australia, where he spent years working with Australian Aboriginal artists and theatre groups. As a traditional storyteller, he employs a rich iconography of line, pattern, colour and dots in his canvas works to portray the animist cosmology that connects him to ancestral culture and land.
Dots are used in traditional body painting and not in Gulf carvings or masks. The dot is the source of life and expresses the spirit. It is the beginning of the line and all other forms. In combination it represents clans and images and interrelationships. Ratoos has also developed his own style integrating dot-screening effects from photography where size and distances are created.
Ratoos’s paintings dance with life and spirit. They vibrate with interlocking images of patterns and tracks, insects and animals, spirits and nature. They tell of legends and heroes; changing forms and the cycle of nature. Artistically pattern, shape, line and colour excite the imagination and lead to investigation and discovery of forms within forms, images and stories for contemplation.
Ratoos is among the few Papuans from the gulf province of PNG who continues to express the beliefs and traditions of his ancestors through his paintings. The traditions and beliefs of his people are no longer practised today due to the interference from the western world on traditional culture. Ratoos perpetuates his heritage and beliefs through design and symbols. PNG is home to over 1,000 different ethnicities speaking some 860 languages.