Grande stèle pour un tapa
This work, a tribute to Paul Gauguin, was created as part of the Atelier des Tropiques at the Paul Gauguin Museum in Tahiti.
This painting gift is presented like a pagan totem, and the creased paper accentuates its sculpted appearance. On the brown colour of the kraft paper that forms the bas-relief, the black acrylic with a slight sheen breaks up and tries to stick to it by reflecting a divided and kaleidoscopic light.
Ladislas Kijno (1921-2012)
Kijno stayed in Tahiti three times, stays that covered four years, from about 1988 to 1991. Hastily named “Retour de Tahiti” by the artist, this simple title does not express the breadth and intensity of the theme, mainly inspired by the Polynesian physical and cultural environment, such as it comes about in painting through Kijno, confronted with muted recollection and questioning Gauguin, as much the man as the work.
Kijno pushed its trajectory to Easter Island, which the painter scoured in 1989, in order to face the harsh monumentality of the megalithic figures, the shapes of which could be his. Kijno relaunched his investigations among the Marquesas archipelago, landed on the island of Hivaoa there in 1990 to reflect and meditate at Atuona, facing Gauguin’s tomb and contemplate his “Maison du jouir” home-workshop.
