Ossify by Telly Tu’u features a selection of paintings in Telly’s signature style – visceral and atmospheric explorations of abstraction, influenced by naturalistic abstract patterns on traditional Samoan Tapa cloth. Telly’s process is almost entirely intuitive – forms organically structuring themselves, Telly following where the marks lead him, paint leftover on the palette dictating the colour and direction of the next work. The works are dotted with purposeful and grounding hard-edged forms, which are either added at the beginning of the process, as a catalyst, or right at the end, to give the work a finishing touch.

For Telly, painting is a way to communicate without necessarily having to be there. He starts a conversation in the studio, which continues between the viewer and the painting when the works are exhibited. His role is to prompt – not to tell people what to think. Especially with abstraction, Telly knows, people tend to make their own narrative, a process which is central to his practice.