Term: August – October
Gazellah Bruder is a highly accomplished and internationally-known artist of Tolai and Mekeo ancestry who lives and works in Papua New Guinea (PNG). She is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, book illustrator, and textile artist, and has also worked in film and television. Her work focuses on social issues, gender, sexuality, and environmental change and she uses her art to promote dialogue about these critical issues.
Bruder is particularly concerned with women’s inequality and domestic violence in Papua New Guinea. Much of her art expresses her insights into women’s experiences and their journeys in life. Countering Euro-American stereotypical depictions of the people of Melanesia—a region of Oceania that extends from Papua New Guinea and West Papua to Fiji—that long represented them as “primitive,” exoticized or eroticized caricatures, or as anthropological “types,” Bruder’s representations of Papua New Guinea women capture their personalities, experiences, and resilience. Her work has received national recognition and in 2020 the PNG government selected her and four other artists to participate in the United Nations’ initiative to produce advocacy materials to prevent and respond to violence against women.
Thank you for the support:
