Clothe Your Eyes You Rude Dude (2014) Mixed media Serene Timoteo NZ$715

This work by West Auckland-based artist and educator, Serene Timoteo was made as part of a response to Selina Tusitala-Marsh’s poem, Two Nudes on a Tahitian Beach, 1894:

Two Nudes on a Tahitian Beach, 1894

Gauguin,
you piss me
off.

You strip me bare
assed, turn me on my side
shove a fan in my hand
smearing fingers on thigh
pout my lips below an
almond eye and silhouette me
in smouldering ochre.

I move
just a little
in this putrid breeze
hair heavy to
fuscous knees, still
I’m the pulse
on the arm of this wall
and I’ve drawn her to me again.

Here she comes.

Not liking that she likes me
not liking you, but knowing that she
likes me, not liking you
liking me, but she
likes me and sees me,
but not you,
because you
Gauguin,
piss us
off.

This work is currently showing at Lime Espresso Bar & Eatery until 19 August 2017 for the 2017 PIMPI Winter Series.