Jolika Collection of Oceania Art

What is your background as an artist?

My father's family (in Leone Village, Tutuila Island, US Territory of American Samoa) were architects, shipbuilders, and tapa (barkcloth) painters, also my grandmother and great grandmother on my mother's side were tapa painters and I used to help them when I was a small boy in Samoa.  As a young man I studied conceptual art at Cal Arts for a couple years but was disenchanted and ended up working in television in Los Angeles for years.  About seven years ago I began painting again while living in Samoa and living on money from a script I wrote.  Since then I'm in love with painting and its my life long work now.