SHIGEYUKI KIHARA

Bio:

Shigeyuki Kihara (b.1975 -) is a visual and performance artist of Samoan & Japanese decent. Kihara’s work is based on an investigative research relating to the Moana/Pacific, and more specifically to Samoan culture, history and spirituality pointing to how its values and principles can be applied to her urban environment in Auckland, New Zealand where she currently resides. Kihara’s conceptual work is popularly perceived by many as offering a unique perspective on the universe from a Samoan and a Fa’a fafine world view - for Kihara herself is a Fa’a fafine - meaning an anatomically born male living as a woman, closely translated as ‘third gender’ in the western interpretation. Her recent body of work entitled ‘Fa’a fafine; In a manner of a woman’ series 2005 was first exhibited in March 05 as a solo exhibition at both the Sherman Galleries in Sydney and Artspace in Auckland. Selected works from the ‘Fa’a fafine’ series 2005 is currently included in the international touring exhibition entitled ‘Asia Traffic’ curated by the Asia Australia Arts Centre Sydney, touring venues including; Today Art Museum in Beijing and Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai. Kihara is a recipient of the Creative New Zealand Arts Council Emerging Pacific Artist Award in 2003. Examples of her artworks can be found in the public collections of Waikato Museum of Art and History, University of Auckland and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. Kihara is currently working towards her upcoming exhibition involvement in 2006 with venues including; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in the UK. Shigeyuki Kihara is currently represented by Bartley Nees Gallery in Wellington New Zealand and her work can also be found at Sherman Galleries in Sydney Australia.

Regarding the artworks for the exhibition:

They are entitled ‘Tama Samoa’ and ‘Teine Samoa’ from the series entitled Fa’a fafine; In a manner of a woman’ 2005.

Credits:

Title of artwork: ‘Tama Samoa’ and ‘Teine Samoa’ 2005 dip tick (from the series entitled ‘Fa’a fafine; In a manner of a woman’ 2005)

Medium: photography and mixed media

Scale: 80 mm x 60mm

Photo: coylehall

Courtesy of the Artist and the Sherman Galleries Sydney

Post-modern theorist Judith Butler argues that it is not possible to be a human subject without taking shape within the law of a gender – either male or female. This exclusionary framework creates a domain of the “unliveable,” occupied by people who do not fall into the binary divisions of gender. They either live in secret and ‘pass’ as if they do, or they are dehumanized. It is in this realm that is occupied by Kihara who lives her life as a transgender. Butler’s theories ignore the role that race and ethnicity plays in human subject-hood and are limited to a Western construct of thinking. Kihara has been to some extent, protected from these understandings by her early assignation in Samoa as a fa’afafine, who are born biologically male and express feminine gender identities in a variety of ways. An accepted role in Samoan society.

Fiona Foley’s “Native Blood” 1994 pre-empts an aspect of Kihara’s current work. Both artists use as their template the colonial photographic postcard representation of the languid reclining South Seas Belle and position themselves in such a situation. Whereas Foley’s portrayal focuses on changing the power balance of such material and reclaiming the boundaries of the colonial gaze, Kihara’s re-enactment has a fidelity to detail and at face value pays tribute to both the Kitsch aspect of the genre and the sexualized Dusky Maiden. There is a seriousness in Kihara’s posturing that undermines the irony she may wish to invoke or the truth she wishes to declare - a sense of ‘passing’ as a woman or as a man impersonating a woman, against the woman who is a man impersonating a man.

Kihara’s artwork straddles an ambiguous field of binary forces - east/west, original/copy, male/female, and challenges the viewer as being complex and multiple, parody and reality.

“Who am I, what am I, and what are you?” are questions that will never haunt or torment Kihara. Rather, they provide her with the material for her artwork. The only possible answers to these questions are limited and draw boundaries that Kihara will continue to cross in the expression of her existence.

For highlights of Shigeyuki Kihara’s artwork please visit:

http://www.shermangalleries.com.au/

http://www.bartleyneesgallery.co.nz/

http://www.tautai.org/

BACK