Lonnie Hutchinson 

Acknowledging and informed by the rich cultural resources of her Polynesian heritage (Maori -Ngai Tahu, Samoan), Lonnie Hutchinson is a multi media, visual, installation and performance artist who has exhibited throughout Australasia and internationally. Drawing lies at the base of Lonnie’s practice, which is as much influenced by contemporary advertising, hip hop, graffiti art and popular culture as by Polynesian aesthetics and art forms, juxtaposing negative and positive elements.  
      

Sista 7, 2003

Lonnie’s signature works comprise of decorative cut-outs made from black builders paper, which pay homage to Pacific women and their traditional arts such as siapo, tivaevae and weaving. Maori kowhaiwhai, koru motifs, Polynesian designs and frangipani forms alternate with pigeon cut-outs or ‘Scary Spice’ like silhouettes. These decorations create a delicate interplay of space, light and shadow expressing socio/political/gender and cultural concerns. Sister Seven (2003) an intricately patterned set of 7 cut-outs on black building paper, represents Lonnie’s spiritual experience and response to the mountainous tribal landscapes of her Ngai Tahu ancestors. More recently Lonnie has produced ‘cut-outs’ on laser-cut acrylic.

 

Sista Girl

 

In her performance, installation and animation works Lonnie acknowledges the way our environmental, architectural, social and domestic spaces are defined and formalised, informing and defining our actions. In her Black Pearl animation, a cut-out curtain creates a window or peep show, where the viewer becomes voyeur. Similarly her first animation Red uses patterns moving at space invader speed as a metaphor for ‘early beginnings’ and the place of Papatuanuku as mother earth. Recent animations explore the potential of augmented reality, rendering pigeons in flight. As a sacred and spiritual symbol the pigeon commemorates Lonnie’s journey to the ritual and divinatory site of the tia seu lupe (Samoa) and the intimate relationship between her cultural and spiritual experience and ongoing enquiry.

Crown-Affair, 2005 (video)

Lonnie frequently participates in major group exhibitions and solo shows which include Pasifika Styles (2006 – 2008) at the University of Cambridge Museum, UK; L’Art Urbain du Pacifique (Urban Art from the Pacific) at Castle of Saint-Aurent, Limousin, France (2005); Samoa Contemporary (2008), Pataka, Porirua and This Show Is What I Do (2005) at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Lonnie also regularly contributes to collective art projects including TRANS VERSA (2006) in Santiago, Chile and collaborated with students from HITLabNZ (Human Interface Technology Laboratory), University of Canterbury in 2005.