The entangled god

item details

NameThe entangled god

ProductionDavid Lasisi; artist; 1976

Classificationprints, screen prints, works on paper

Materialspaper

Materials Summaryscreenprint

Techniquesscreen printing

DimensionsImage: 470 (height), 470 (length)

Registration Number1989-0014-2

Credit linePurchased 1989 with New Zealand Lottery Board funds

Overview

David Lasisi was born in the New Ireland province of Papua New Guinea in 1955. He moved to Port Moresby to study as an adolescent. The rapidly changing urban environment of Port Moresby was a stark change from the village traditions Lasisi was raised in.

The title of this 1976 screenprint, The entangled god, echoes a poem Lasisi wrote the same year:

In the confusion of my staring

Confusion attacked me and swept my mind away

The beach started laughing

And the breeze did sway

Into my entangled soul

Well I have been trapped easily

Accepting alienated gifts

And slowly forgetting my society

Like a log being adrift

The entangled god is one of two prints by Lasisi in Te Papa’s collection, both of which address the presence of customary practices and images in contemporary life.

References:

David Lasisi, Searching, National Arts School, 1976, p.11.