Andy Leleisi’uao – A Diasporic Pulse of Faith & Patience Panel 8.

Andy Leleisi’uao, A Diasporic Pulse of Faith & Patience Panel 8. Acrylic on Canvas, 1520x1010mm, 2018. Shipping by arrangement.

‘The series is immediately recognisable for its forms in silhouette, created by brush and hand (Andy likes to speak of his fingerprints being all over his works). The majority are in black and bordered by a misty halo reminiscent of charcoal smudges, a feature that lends the works a certain ethereality or other-worldliness, even before their specific content is considered. The images are made up of compartments mostly populated by human (or human-like) figures. This pictorial system relates to a host of image-making traditions from round the world. Comic books, which Andy has enjoyed since his youth, are one reference point. I think, too, of friezes on Greek temples, tomb paintings from Egypt, sculptures on South-East Asian buildings, and carvings on elephant tusks from West Africa.’ Francis McWhannell