I can see clearly now

“The only way for me to start painting, really find what I want to do, is to start from the beginning.”1 For the late artist, Lily Laita, the starting point or ‘beginning’ for all painting is whakapapa (genealogy). I Can See Clearly Now is a defining work within the artist’s oeuvre – the largest in scale and a key articulation of the multiple genealogies, histories and geographies that converge in her practice.

The work commenced following Laita’s first visit to Sāmoa in 1993, an experience that found new expression in her works. The composition is structured in three sections, with ancestral figures and memories that draw on her Māori and Samoan heritage. These ancestral figures emerge from the black builder’s paper, transforming the surface into a portal. One such figure includes Aitui Ta’avao, Laita’s paternal great grandfather, a member of the Mau Independence Movement and whom Laita receives her middle name. He appears on the right section and across earlier works such as Pari‘aka (1989). References to Laita’s maternal line are seen on the left side through motifs such as an abstracted build that represents their family marae. This was blown away in a storm and remembered only through memory, highlighting the importance of oral histories in indigenous cultures. Laita places herself as an embodiment and connector across these genealogies, positioning herself in the central panel and represented through an upside-down face.

I can see clearly now is quintessential of Laita’s description of her works as ‘platforms of thought’, an intuitive practice that blends formal explorations and involves a layering process of cultural values, rituals and ceremony. The scale of the work requires the viewer to move across the work allowing the connections to gradually unfold.

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