Tevita Pola’paha was born on the island of Kotu in 1958. Kotu is one of the smallest islands in the Ha'apai group in the Pacific country of Tonga. He
was one of six children in his family.
He was raised by his grandmother until he was five and then his father,
who was a farmer took him to Tongatapu so he could attend school.
Tevita's first exposure to art came while attending his primary school. He had
a teacher who would tell a story and while they were telling the story would
draw pictures of the story. This really piqued his interest in drawing and he would often find himself drawing pictures from memory of the movie he had watched the previous day.
He considers himself fortunate to have been accepted at Liahona school where he was introduced to a very good art instructor by the name of Willis.
Tevita didn’t feel he was the best artist in the class, but he really loved art and drawing. He continued with his art studies for the next three years and then was able to enroll in school in New Zealand in 1974. By now he was getting quite good and soon became the top art student in his High School.
In New Zealand, Tevita had
something he never had at Liahona, or ever before in his life – a watercolor
set and brush. He would paint all day
and all night. In 1975, he was the top
student again. In fact, art was the only
class he passed with an ‘A’ as he didn't focus at all on the rest of his classes. His heart was in art 100%.
He also had a good art teacher in Auckland who helped him get in to
the Auckland Technical school where they very selective as they only
took 30 students a year. He returned to Liahona in 1980 where he accepted a job as an art teacher where he taught for the next 13 years.
Tevita met a beautiful woman by the name of Vaiuku (Uku) and asked her to marry him the first time they met. She accepted and they were married in the year 2005 and have been happy ever since. Together they have
four wonderful children. Uku is very involved with his
art as she prepares the tapa cloth that he uses to paint on and runs the business side of things.
He gets inspiration for his art from the world around him. He especially loves to paint landscapes that include things he feels the next generation may never see such as an older Tongan face (home) of a horse drawn cart. Perhaps his love comes from his childhood as he was born in a small file and his father used a horse and cart daily. He feels he has a responsibility of recording those in paintings so that the generation to come will have a chance to seem them as well. He feels so strongly about capturing history that he now paints on traditional tapa cloth prepared by his wife. He also mixes Mauri art from his days in New Zealand with his Tongan designs and always strives to bring out the beauty in both. Some of this art includes sea creatures and he is captivated by the way they all share the same space.
Please enjoy looking at some of his art work on this site and you can read some of his life stories that inspire his art.
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