Artwork information

Teuane Tibbo started making art in the 1960s. She was a self-taught artist who migrated to Aotearoa in 1945. Born at the end of The First Sāmoan Civil War, Tibbo’s life coincided with the contest for control Sāmoa between the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States. As a young woman, she witnessed the beginnings of the Mau Movement for independence in 1908 and the arrival of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces sent to seize and occupy German Sāmoa during World War One.

The subject of her paintings was devoted to memories of her time in Sāmoa, unshaped by artworld conventions. Her signature style included a skewed birds eye view of events and a flat picture plane that uniquely ordered subject matter into striations, as depicted in Goldmine.

Distinct within this work are a range of images that deter from her usual recollections of life in Sāmoa including the appearance of motor vehicles and a railroad system. The work was made as a gift for a friend who had helped her grandson who was a pupil at Mount Albert Primary School. In gratitude, she said that she would like to paint him a picture and asked what he would like her to paint. To which her friend, who was