Native Practitioner

Marcus Hipa’s powerful and bold paintings are unflinching in their focus on the history and culture of his native Niue. Using a unique style that combines the energy of raw anime with exquisite draughtsmanship, and the ambitious scale of the socialist mural painters such as Diego Rivera, he pulls no punches with his style or subject matter. 

This focus on manual labour is inherent in each work in the show - combining stories and mythologies from his spiritual home, always with reference to the crushing shadows of colonialism in the background. It’s a knockout debut show with the gallery for a young artist punching well above his weight with ambitious and extraordinary works.