By Kite Pareti
Mele Nabola’s journey with art began from a young age. Her father, who’s also an artist, has been her inspiration which encouraged her to follow in his footsteps.
“Growing up I would see him paint sign boards for a living. I would help him clean his brushes and then later on I started developing my own style of artworks,” the 26-year-old artist said.
Hailing from the Yasawa islands, Nabola is one of three artists behind the grand, colourful art mural at The Greenhouse Coworking Space in Suva. It was made possible with the support of the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) Group.
“I’m so grateful that I was given this opportunity to build myself as an artist and to contribute to the community,” she said.
Her mentor, Jack Eastgate, is a very experienced artist,.
“Not only did he teach us how to paint, he also taught us life lessons involved with art and how art is tied to our culture and different societies,” she said.
“My favourite artwork on the mural would be the market. I painted the market with Jack and Hefrani [Barnes]’s help. Market life is a very big thing in Fiji. Whether it is the Suva market or the Lautoka market, there’s a lot of cultures that come together. It shows diversity,” she added.
The theme of the mural is ‘Noda vanua ni mataka’ (‘Our land of tomorrow’).
“The meaning behind the mural was that in the future we could use our culture and technology to help us move forward. So you’ll see in the mural there are bures with solar panels. There’s also a Drua that’s flying. You’ll also see the woman at the market using a solar light under an umbrella. You’ll also see the fruits are kinda big and colourful. We envision our future where we use a lot of clean energy where it doesn’t harm the environment,” said Nabola.
AFD Group Representative in Fiji, Elodie Vitalis, noted: “Our commitment goes beyond financial contributions. We are very committed to this initiative because we firmly believe that art can be a catalyst for change.”
“It was also very important that the artists kept their freedom [of expression]. While we exchanged ideas about the main theme of the mural, we were really happy that they could choose all the details and colour,” she said.
Meanwhile, Greenhouse Coworking’s Art for Change initiative will provide the venue free of charge to enable the three artists to offer regular classes for aspiring and practicing artists.
It’s part of Greenhouse Coworking Founder, Ronna Pastorizo-Sekiguchi’s bigger vision.
“We are open for more partners to collaborate on this initiative further, as we can visualise it expanding to more than just classes and murals. We can see the whole of Des Voeux Road turning into what I have been calling The Arts Precinct in Suva starting from Mana Coffee at the other end which already has a mural and paintings in-house, the Alliance Francaise, and even right up to Baka Books. Guided Art Walks can take place and we can have Nights at Des Voeux featuring and supporting all kinds of creativepreneurs, artists, visual artists, performing artists, tattoo artists, for a Night Market,” Pastorizo-Sekiguchi, said.
