Oceania is a vast and diverse region, encompassing New Guinea in the west, Hawaii in the north, and Easter Island in the south-east. Societies were typically small-scale, kinship-based groups. Artists of the Hawaiian Islands developed their own variants on Polynesian style.
Oceanic Art, works of art produced by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Islands from the beginnings of human settlement to the present, including carving in wood and stone, woven and painted fabrics, decorated weapons such as clubs and spears, large ceremonial houses and canoes, and body arts such as tattooing.
Well-known works are pieces of figure sculpture and masks. However, it is not always appreciated that abstract pattern and design are also important dimensions of Oceanic art, particularly in genres produced by women, such as mats and painted barkcloth. An object such as a mask may only have been one feature of what was originally an elaborate event, including ritual, dance, song, and feasting. The mask represents the story being told in the ritual.
Each island or island group generally had distinctive styles in sculpture, architecture, bark cloth, food vessels, woven mats, and tattooing, among other art forms. The Oceanic tradition of the Hawaiian culture and their art and design utilized various materials and mediums including shell and tortoise shell, wood and stone.
Fine, expressive carvings in wood and stone occur across the region; they typically represent principal gods, the Hawaiian war god, as well as deified local chiefly ancestors. Carving was delicately decorated, featuring geometric forms and the multiplication of face motifs the sophistication of their original function in violent hand-to-hand conflict.
Oceanic art forms are extraordinarily diverse. Masks and carvings represent particular genres, such as figurative representations of ancestors, spirits, and gods, which are found across the region.
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