Paperskin: barkcloth across the Pacific - Queensland Art Gallery

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Kavat mask (front and back) 1971
Papua New Guinea
Kairak Baining people, East New
Britain Province
Barkcloth, paper, dye, felt
pen, wood and cane / 135 x
133 x 60cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant.
croton leaves, was propelled on black legs, pounding in time with the drumming,
racing forwards, reversing, then stomping ever closer, the head swaying and
pirouetting . . . children screamed in fear and ran to escape. In one last, swift burst
of fervour, the masked apparition turned, raced and jumped in to the centre of the
bonfire. There, for a few long seconds it stomped and twisted, burning sticks and
embers scattering in all directions. 17
The baining masks in ‘Paperskin’ bear the traces of their performance: soot from fires,
and the remnants of dyes and oils used to paint and perfume the dancer’s skin.
however, these masks are more than theatrical devices: they allow for an interaction
with, and a continuation of, a specific cosmology. living in the Gazelle Peninsula in the
1970s, theologians Karl hesse and Theo Aerts recorded that the ‘baining worldview
accepts as it were two worlds, in which the other one (a rimbab) is the replica of this
world’. 18 The invisibility of the rimbab becomes visible in the dances. Masked, their
bodies adorned with paint and leaves, the dancers become the manifestation of spirits:
They show the forces of nature — but at the same time also their limitations — the
power of man, and the ambiguity of his relationship with that which is constantly
beyond his immediate grasp. 19
in many cultures across the Pacific, barkcloth continues to be significant. The
deliberate repetition of geometric patterns has enabled a visual idiom historically linking
barkcloth with other important cultural practices such as tattooing and weaving, as
well as defunct art forms such as rock engravings and lapita pottery. recognition
and appreciation of these designs has ensured the art form’s ongoing practice. On
a fibrous surface, using a restricted colour palette and limited combinations of linear
and curvilinear non-figurative designs, barkcloth makers have created extraordinarily
diverse works that mediate the social and spiritual transformation of both individuals
and groups.
For some, the need to sustain this practice — to work communally, and to have goods
to give and exchange — is so strong that, even when lacking the essential materials,
they continue to innovate. in the mid 1990s in sydney’s west, for example, susana
Kaafi gathered a group of women together to cut and glue interfacing material into long
strips. laying them onto a large makeshift table in Kaafi’s backyard, they then painted
the strips — using the dust scraped from red bricks — with the gridded emblems of the
Tongan monarchy alongside stylised images of the sydney Opera house.
Maud Page is Curator, Contemporary Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art.
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