Tim Melville

“Repurposing discarded, overlooked scraps of coloured paper – repurposing discarded, overlooked scraps of coloured paper – rearranging them to reveal new perspectives – and so creating potentialities in the consideration of colour, space, balance and composition.“

We are proud to present an exhibition of new paintings by Salome Tanuvasa, created during her time as the recipient of the 2025-2026 C Art Trust Award.

The C Art Trust generously provides an award of $55,000 to support a mid-career contemporary artist for 12 months. Previous recipients include Jeena Shin, Andrew Barber, Anoushka Akel, Georgie Hill, Christina Pataialii and Kathy Barry. The award is a response to the fact that Aotearoa New Zealand’s contemporary artists are creatively rich but notoriously time-poor.

The curator for this year’s Award was Hanahiva Rose, the newly appointed Curator at Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, who writes:

“Salome Tanuvasa’s thoughtful and evocative paintings explore the qualities of form and colour.

I have been familiar with Tanuvasa’s practice for some time and was particularly struck by her recent paintings for their engagement with histories of European modernism.

With determined vitality, Tanuvasa’s paintings offer a contemporary Pacific response to abstract painting traditions, locating themselves firmly in her culture and community while looking out towards the wider world.

Her work follows the possibilities of a line, a mark: their capacity to repeat, evolve and carry us through time and space.”

Tanuvasa herself describes her paintings as “communicating an intuitive sense of the places where I find joy – in my home and with my family.”

Indeed, her preparation for this body of work occurred alongside her family at the kitchen table. The artist and three generations of her family, sitting together, used random offcuts of coloured paper to make a large number of A4-size collaged paper works – some of which included traces of printed text or were embellished with crayon markings.

Tanuvasa chose a small number of these collaborative creations to work up into larger paintings.

Photography by Kallan MacLeod

Artist's studio, August 2026

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
Installation view

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 11
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-15

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
Installation view

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 5
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-09

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 4
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-08

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
Installation view

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 8
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-12

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
Installation view

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 6
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-10

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 2
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-06

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
Installation view

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
Installation view
2026

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 9
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-12

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 7
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-11

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
Installation view

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 1
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-05

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
Installation view

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts 3
2026
acrylic on canvas
1200mm H x 1000mm W
ST-2026-07

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
Installation view

Salome Tanuvasa
Offcuts
2026
collaged card

Salome Tanuvasa

OFFCUTS

Salome Tanuvasa OFFCUTS