10 Artworks
Working intuitively with pigment, canvas and wood, I draw from traditional Cook Island and Samoan practices, including tapa cloth and wood carving, reimagining them through a contemporary language. Each work forms part of a larger constellation, connecting gestures, memories and expressions across people, generations and distance.
About the Artist
Born and raised on Manihiki, one of the world’s most remote inhabited islands, and now based in Berlin, Germany, Taja Vaetoru (b. 1995) draws from their Cook Island and Samoan heritage to explore memory, ancestry and belonging. Inspired by generations of Polynesian voyagers and storytellers, their practice carries inherited narratives into the present. Through mark, material and gesture, Vaetoru continues a lineage of storytelling, connecting personal experience with the cultural memory of the Pacific.
News and Notables
Two-person exhibition, Collective Canvas, Web3 Summit, 2026
Solo exhibition, FLINTA* FORWARD, Adidas Sports Base Berlin, 2026
Two-person exhibition, So’otaga, Everything Carries Forward, Bergman Gallery, 2026