Painting the portrait of Ratu Sir Josefa Lalabalavu Vanayaliyali Sukuna has been the most signifi­cant portrait Lino Lionel Colatiniyara has had to make.

Despite the busy schedule from clients, he made it his priority to design Ratu Sukuna’s portrait.

Mr Colatiniyara was approached by the Fiji National University to design Ratu Sukuna’s portrait as one of the main dis­plays at the Ratu Sukuna Day art exhibi­tion.

He said it was his first time to paint a portrait of a significant leader of Fiji.

“The medium that I used for the painting was traditional masi because I wanted it to be significantly Fijian. Paining Ratu Sukuna was something I have never done before because normally I’ve done paint­ings of customers who requested por­traits of their family or something like that.

“His one of the great men of Fiji and to do a portrait of Fiji, the president and all of those high-level people it’s kind of a high standard for me.”

Mr Colatiniyara started off his painting of Ratu Sukuna with the use of a more abstract technique with different colors such as red, yellow as tribute colors.

He had to shift some of his paintings orders and completed Ratu Sukuna’s por­trait between two to three days.

“I wanted to do his portrait because he’s like a special painting for me so I shifted all of those orders to work overtime at an­other time while I focused on Ratu Suku­nua’s potrait.”

His portrait of Ratu Sukuna was un­veiled at the launch of the Ratu Sukuna Day art exhibition at the Nasinu Campus.

“I was happy to see that my work as an artist was acknowledged and recognized through this Ratu Sukuna Celebration.”

Mr Colatiniyara runs his own busi­ness Tough Arts where his collections are mainly family portraits and various paintings.

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Story By: laiseana.nasiga@fijisun.com.fj