YAMASHITA Komiyo
Born: 25 February 1903 – Died: 2 August 1943
Particulars:
Komiyo was born in Tanami, Wakayama Prefecture in Japan. When she was 18, she married Yamashita Kinzo, a fisherman, and moved with him to Fiji. In 1927 they settled in Tonga. Komiyo’s three children were all born in Nuku’alofa, Tonga in the 1930s. Their names were Nanae, Susumu, and Satsuki.
When the Pacific War broke out in 1941, Komiyo’s husband was interned on Matiu / Somes Island in Wellington Harbour, Aotearoa / New Zealand, while Komiyo and her children were kept with the other internee wives and children near Auckland. Komiyo spoke to New Zealand authorities through a Tongan interpreter as she didn’t speak English. The family was reunited to be sent on a flight to Australia in 1943. That flight crashed flying out of Auckland. Komiyo and Satsuki died in the plane crash, while Kinzo, Nanae, and Susumu survived, and were later sent to an internment camp in Australia.
–Sophie Constable
More info:
Ebonie Laufilitoga Maka Fifita with Aniselina Nishi, Nuki Beazley, Jenni Heka, Peti Taufa, Vitolio Laufilitoga Maka & friends, Mayuko Uene Haruna, Sophie Constable and Mayu Kanamori
Artist/s Statement:
Reflecting their three main homes, the Yamashita family’s works join Tongan, Fijian, and Japanese pigments, dyes, cloth, and designs. On layers of paper mulberry bark pounded together to form ngatu cloth, Tongan and Fijian earth pigments catch the kupesi designs, highlighted with overlaid dyes from the bark of red mangrove and other medicinal plants also used to honour all layers of life and transitions to and from it. The interlocking circles create a pattern familiar in Pasifika as well as Japan, and the manulua (two birds / birds in flight) design became common vocabulary in all the works. This grounding has been digitally combined with an overlay of katagami stencil patterns on indigo-dyed kimono silk.
Komiyo’s artwork is paired with her husband Kinzo’s work. Their names lie back to back along a central rope binding and pathway. The work is fringed with a kupesi that speaks to the humble people of the grassroots, perseverance and determination, and a karakusa pattern that symbolises longevity, prosperity, natural beauty, and harmony.
Artist Bio:
Nurtured by fele artist Ebonie Laufilitoga Maka Fifita in her home, the Yamashita family works are a collaboration between many hands and hearts that have informed and contributed, including Aniselina Nishi, Nuki Beazley, Jenni Heka, Peti Taufa, Vitolio Laufilitoga Maka and friends, Mayuko Uene Haruna, Sophie Constable, and Mayu Kanamori.