The Cook Islands and Rarotonga have a very fertile soil for Art

To show and share the local culture with visitors is certainly part of the artists' motivation, but there are other reasons why our art forms are thriving. In ancient Polynesia, artists and priest were both called Ta‘unga, enjoyed a special status and worked under the protection of the chiefs. Art in Polynesia was taken as serious as story telling in dance and tattooing, to mark authority and to give power or mana (super natural) to practical items like canoes and costumes.

While traditional arts took a beating after the arrival of the early missionaries, artists have emerged again. In the last 30 years, Cook Islands dance has developed to an increasingly creative art form with high standards, pushed further at the annual dance competitions.

Carving has also been revived. Traditional wood and stone sculpture have been rediscovered and new methods developed with intricate and original shapes and patterns. Early designs of voyaging canoes have been researched and adapted to modern materials and requirements, and a new generation of Vaka are now sailing the Pacific.

Tattooing is very popular again and new motifs continue to evolve.

Textile art is presently one of the most high-profile art forms in the Cook Islands. Old and new creations of Tivaivai are in museums and exhibitions are held internationally. Our distinctly own fashion designs are not only worn proudly in the 'Cooks', but also on catwalks overseas.

But of all the art forms practiced in the Cook Islands, painting has developed the most. 25 years ago you could have counted the local painters on one hand, including the few papa‘a (non-Polynesian) resident artists. The local branch of the University of the South Pacific (USP) organized workshops in 1984 and 1996 to promote painting, with established artists Pilioko and Michoutouchkine from Vanuatu telling the local and resident artists to get "cracking". Many of them did, and some never stopped.

Over the last 15 years, the local visual arts have been fertilized by several New Zealand and Australian trained artists returning to the Cook Islands. Together with dynamic new galleries on Rarotonga, they developed their ideas and created a vigorous art scene, encouraging several young artists to take up art as a career.

The following artists contribute with their imagination, some continue researching traditional images, and all create their own visual language to show and share their experiences, feelings and ideas.